[It’s late and I’m tired, so I’m posting this without commentary. I’ll add more information as the news stories start trickling in tomorrow. But whew! 3.2 million.]
From the OC register:
Kaiser pays $3.2 million in birthing malpractice case
A now 14-year-old girl wasn’t breathing when she was born at the Anaheim hospital.
BY COURTNEY PERKES
A 14-year-old Lake Forest girl who suffered brain damage during her birth at Kaiser Permanente’s Anaheim hospital received a $3.2 million settlement this month.
Ariana Ehtemam wasn’t breathing when she was delivered by Caesarean section and now suffers from physical and behavioral problems, according to court documents.
The money from Kaiser has purchased an annuity worth $20 million over her lifetime. She will receive the first payment at 18.
Her parents, Ardie and Ela Ehtemam, declined to comment through their attorney, Frank Barbaro.
The settlement was reached after a binding arbitration decision in favor of the family.
“We were surprised by the verdict but want to extend our sympathy to the family,” Kaiser spokesman Jim Anderson said Tuesday.
According to court settlement papers filed Jan. 11, Ela Ehtemam’s C-section wasn’t performed in a timely matter. The baby had to be resuscitated and spent several weeks in the hospital. Ariana now suffers from hearing loss, poor impulse control and attention deficits.
The money will pay for future medical expenses, ongoing rehabilitation services and any residential supervision she may need.
“She is keeping up with her schooling,” Barbaro said. “She has to have a lot of accommodations. She has these wonderful parents who really do protect her and a school district responding to her need.”
In California, malpractice judgments are capped at $250,000 for pain and suffering. Additional monetary damages result from loss of wages and need for ongoing care. Some of Orange County’s largest medical malpractice judgments have exceeded $15 million.
Late last year, Kaiser paid $1.8 million to the family of a Huntington Beach man who suffered a brain aneurysm after his headache was misdiagnosed.
Kaiser ruined another girls life. I wonder how kaiser criminals would like that done to their child?
Awe, but now Kaiser’s gotten wise…now kaiser just sees to it that the baby dies so they don’t get stuck paying out millions in lifetime care. Now they just lose fetal heart monitor strips so there is no proof behind their murderous intent.
Keep it up kaiser because your actions are just going to continue to cost you and cost you and someday it’s going to cost you your entire organization.
Someday there won’t be kaiser victims because someday, in an ideal world, kaiser won’t be around.
Very sad case. Unfortunately, bad things sometimes happen in the birthing business. Crazy to slam Kaiser for one physician’s poor decision. Do you slam Blue Cross any time a bad outcome happens with one of their physicians?
What’s even crazier is asking why we don’t post about Blue Cross on a site about Kaiser. Why would we? It’s also not a valid comparison because Blue Cross doesn’t directly employ the physicians like Kaiser does. The physicans ARE Kaiser.
And trust me, from one who lost her newborn at Kaiser because of negligent, stupid and murderous protocol (or lack of)…there is PLENTY to complain about with Kaiser “care.” Mothers everywhere be forewarned: DO NOT GO TO KAISER TO HAVE YOUR BABY.
To “Bad Things Happen” who posted above, don’t even get me started or I will unleash a fire storm like you have never seen.
Please Kaiser has lots of bad doctors, my daughter was mis treated during her miscarriage. She ended up needing a blood transfusion and was still sent home with fetal tissue and placenta in her uterus although she was told for two months by multiple kaiser doctors her usterus was normal size and everything was out of her uterus. My daughter continued to have pain and light bleeding for two months, until I finally forced her to go to another hospital. And when she did that’s when it was discovered she had the fetus and placenta still in her uterus and because of this she had to go through a D and C again, but oh yeah kaiser claims that had already did this. But kaiser pathology report doesn’t back up what they said, the other hospital said that if kaiser would have read the pathology report they would have known the fetus was still in her uterus, even if they couldn’t detect it upon physical exam. But my question is this, you see multiple doctors and know one can detect a fetus and placenta. That is more than a sign of a big problem at kaiser northern california. This happened in the San Francisco Bay Area, be careful of Kaiser, to many under trained doctors and other staff who just don’t give a care. I could go on and on about how bad the care was from regular obgyn visits to regular md visits, but I don’t have space on this board.
I say no matter what doctor or hospital you visit please be a advocate for your own care. And if you don’t understand somethig bring a family member with you. And if your not getting the help, don’t be afraid to change hospitals or doctors for s second or third opinion out of the kaiser network.
And yes if blue cross or blue shield was a problem I would blame them and the doctors. Because they control and regulate what the doctors determine to do with the patient care or lack of based off of money and test they don’t want to do, same as kaiser. So yes I will blame the system for the hack doctors they continue to employ.
I’m so sorry for everyone who has experienced pain and loss and tragedy at the hands of kaiser so called caregivers. I’ve worked in the past as a caregiver who really was determined to give the best possible care, so I know from experience a lot of people who go into health care are just there for the money. So many people just worried about how much money their going to make, they never bother to keep updating their skills and bedside manner to make sure their not killing or hurting people.
I’ve met some hospital staff who genuienly are caring, but they were one out a million and didn’t have anything to do with direct care that my daughter or other family members recieved. I would say we encountered more bad health care people than good ones.
An example being bad bedside manner when my daughter was having her miscarriage the male doctor came in an say very matter of factly oh yeah it’s dropping and we both looked at him to say what are you talking about. And he said oh yeah it’s a miscarriage, his tone was without a care in the world about my daughter. And when she started to uncontrollably cry he couldn’t understand why and looked so shocked at her reaction to the news and his delivery of the miscarriage. Such uncaring and obviously undertrained people.
Just remember these doctors and nurses are people, so there is a lot of room for human error. And even more room for error when they don’t care, their to laid back,are arrogant and think they know everything, their not willing to do necessary test. Don’t know something and not willing to get a second opinion to make sure they know what their talking about.
I could go on and on.
Best of care to everyone and God Bless, I’m so sorry for all the pain and loss here.
I have had 4 births at Kaiser and all my babies and I received excellent care.
I’m sorry to say that I too am a victim of the incompetence of doctors today, that happen to be at kaiser. I don’t know if it’s kaiser or the staff at kaiser to blame, but my daughter is 19 months old and doesn’t crawl, walk, or chew her food. Her MRI show brain damage from birth. I have had to put her in Physical, occupational, and speech therapy. She has gone to a neurologist, we have flown to Baltimore from las vegas to johns hopkins to see a specialist, and now we have an appointment for a gastro doc. If only my “emergency” csection was treated as an emergency, maybe my daughter would be playing with other toddlers her age and running around getting into things. Doctors are supposed to be professionals that we can trust. The specialist that we saw said I should give it until she’s five before I worry, but I have already been worried for months now.