Bedsores lead to claims

Two new lawsuits allege

avoidable harm from ulcers

 

By David Baker
Posted Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014
234 words

Many of the lawsuits filed against hospitals and nursing homes allege that bedsores developed or were not treated properly while a person was in the facility.

Two of several such complaints filed this year name two area hospitals and a doctor as defendants.

According to a document in the first one, Peter J. Enzien suffered harm at Albany Medical Center Hospital “… when the said Peter John Enzien commenced medical treatment with the defendants at the medical facility in Albany, New York on or about January 8, 2012, the plaintiff was free of any sores or ulcers commonly known as bed sores,” the documents says. But “…while the plaintiff was a patient at the defendant’s facility, the plaintiff developed a substantial ulcer and bed sore.”

The claim was filed in May by attorney Robert Becher of Albany.

The second case names Ellis Hospital in Schenectady and a physician, Sanjiv Kayastha. It was brought by Cherylyn and Joseph McDowell, who live in Warren County.

According to the suit, during two separate admissions Cherylyn McDowell developed a sacral decubitus ulcer after hospital staff “ :…negligently breached the applicable standard of care by, among other things, failing to properly timely consistently and adequately turn and/or alter the position of Plaintiff, Cherylyn McDowell, as to avoid the development of pressure or decubitus sores.”

The compliant was filed in March by the Mills Law Firm of Clifton Park. N. Y.

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