thedrifter
06-24-09, 09:06 AM
Law may Help Troops sue on Medical Mishaps
June 23, 2009
by Brian Mitchell
The family of a Marine Iraq war veteran who died from skin cancer after military physicians allegedly failed to properly treat the disease are cautiously optimistic after a bill named in his honor began its uphill path through Congress.
The “Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act” cleared its first hurdle when it narrowly passed a House judicial subcommittee last month, paving the way for the possible reversal of the 59-year old Feres Doctrine that bars military members from suing the Defense Department for negligence.
“We’ve moved forward and we’re excited about that,” Carmelo Rodriguez’s sister, Ivette Rodriguez, said in an interview with *************. “This is what my brother would have wanted. He did not anyone to have to go through what he suffered.”
But a spokeswoman for the Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy organization -- widely known as VERPA -- said the bill sponsored by a New York congressman has scant chance of becoming law.
“The Senate will stonewall this. They’ve already made it clear no matter what happens in the House, this bill will not make it beyond the Senate,” Barb Cragnotti said in an interview with *************.
The Feres Doctrine is the controversial result of a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that potentially impacts millions of American service members. It essentially bars troops from collecting damages from the Defense Department for negligence on the part of others that is incidental to service.
Dependents are not included in the ruling, allowing scores of spouses and children to collect millions in damages from the Defense Department each year in connection with medical malpractice.
The Pentagon does not keep aggregate numbers of allegations of medical malpractice, leaving the individual services to track cases in their respective medical facilities.
The Army could not provide a tally on the number of medical malpractice cases filed in 2007 and 2008, but said it currently has 49 cases awaiting adjudication. The Air Force reported 190 medical malpractice suits filed against it in 2007 and 2008.
The Navy, which also handles cases for the Marine Corps, did not respond to repeated queries from *************.
The ruling has been repeatedly challenged in the courts by service members’ families who have lost a loved one following medical malpractice. VERPA has helped present five cases before the nation’s highest court since the organization’s founding in 1999 -- and failed each time.
“It’s very clear the court is not going to overturn itself,” Cragnotti said. “It’s up to Congress to change the law, but the Senate feels it will open the floodgates for lawsuits that will bankrupt the Pentagon.”
That’s not stopping Rep. Maurice Hinchley (D-N.Y.) from working to create this statute in honor of Rodriguez.
During his 1997 initial medial screening upon entering the Marine Corps, a military physician noted in his chart that a melanoma was present on his buttocks, but failed to inform Rodriguez or pass the information on to other physicians.
While serving in Iraq in 2005, Rodriguez visited a military physician complaining of an area on his buttocks that was oozing puss and blood. He was told it was a wart, given a bandage and returned to duty in the field.
“By that time, they could have done something,” his sister laments. “It was clear this was something that required further treatment, but he got nothing but some bandages.”
When Rodriguez finally had the disease correctly diagnosed, it was too late. Despite three surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy treatment, the once-robust 190-pound Leatherneck shriveled to 80 pounds and perished with his family at his bedside last year.
He left behind a seven year-old son.
To add insult to this plight, his family had to turn to Hinchley’s office for his medical records dating back to his initial 1997 screening when the Marine Corps failed to supply them to civilian physicians.
“What’s amazing to us is that he never turned against the Marine Corps,” his sister said. “He loved the military so much, especially the brotherhood with his Marines. For him, this process would be about protecting his Marines and not about the money. He was never about the money.”
Jeff Lieberson works in Hinchley’s office and has been instrumental in drafting the act.
“Prisoners in this country are able to sue doctors if they receive negligent care, but the men and women protecting our country are not. There is something wrong with that,” Lieberson said in an interview with *************.
Lieberson stressed the proposed changes will only impact medical malpractice.
“This law does not apply in a combat situation,” he said. “We understand that in the heat of the battle things will happen. That’s a much different situation than cases like Sgt. Rodriguez’s.”
Under Hinchley’s proposal, families would be able to seek redress of alleged malpractice dating back to January 1997. Hinchley summed up his feelings on the matter in a June 5 letter to Rep. Ike Skelton, (D- Mo.), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee and Rep. John Conyers, (D-Mich.), Chairman on the House Committee on the Judiciary.
“It is the responsibility of Congress to aggressively examine this issue out of respect to the sacrifices our servicemen and women have made in order to serve our country,” Hinchley wrote.
“Those sacrifices and service surely merit Congress taking the time to hold a discussion of the circumstances that face the men and women of the armed forces.”
Cragnotti, whose son suffers lifelong disabilities due to alleged military medical malpractice, said the law is vital to create accountability in the military’s medical community.
“It’s not about the money, not matter what anyone says. It’s about accountability and the individuals in the military who are hiding behind the Feres Doctrine,” she said.
Lieberman said the bill is expected to go before the full House Judiciary Committee sometime before the fall recess.
For Ivette Rodriguez, who lost her parents to AIDS and her brother to cancer, the early success of the bill is bittersweet.
“I watched my brother grow up to be a great man, a great father and a great Marine and then I watched him suffer when he didn’t have to suffer,” she said. “This is the right thing to do and we know this is what he would have wanted.”
Ellie
June 23, 2009
by Brian Mitchell
The family of a Marine Iraq war veteran who died from skin cancer after military physicians allegedly failed to properly treat the disease are cautiously optimistic after a bill named in his honor began its uphill path through Congress.
The “Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act” cleared its first hurdle when it narrowly passed a House judicial subcommittee last month, paving the way for the possible reversal of the 59-year old Feres Doctrine that bars military members from suing the Defense Department for negligence.
“We’ve moved forward and we’re excited about that,” Carmelo Rodriguez’s sister, Ivette Rodriguez, said in an interview with *************. “This is what my brother would have wanted. He did not anyone to have to go through what he suffered.”
But a spokeswoman for the Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy organization -- widely known as VERPA -- said the bill sponsored by a New York congressman has scant chance of becoming law.
“The Senate will stonewall this. They’ve already made it clear no matter what happens in the House, this bill will not make it beyond the Senate,” Barb Cragnotti said in an interview with *************.
The Feres Doctrine is the controversial result of a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that potentially impacts millions of American service members. It essentially bars troops from collecting damages from the Defense Department for negligence on the part of others that is incidental to service.
Dependents are not included in the ruling, allowing scores of spouses and children to collect millions in damages from the Defense Department each year in connection with medical malpractice.
The Pentagon does not keep aggregate numbers of allegations of medical malpractice, leaving the individual services to track cases in their respective medical facilities.
The Army could not provide a tally on the number of medical malpractice cases filed in 2007 and 2008, but said it currently has 49 cases awaiting adjudication. The Air Force reported 190 medical malpractice suits filed against it in 2007 and 2008.
The Navy, which also handles cases for the Marine Corps, did not respond to repeated queries from *************.
The ruling has been repeatedly challenged in the courts by service members’ families who have lost a loved one following medical malpractice. VERPA has helped present five cases before the nation’s highest court since the organization’s founding in 1999 -- and failed each time.
“It’s very clear the court is not going to overturn itself,” Cragnotti said. “It’s up to Congress to change the law, but the Senate feels it will open the floodgates for lawsuits that will bankrupt the Pentagon.”
That’s not stopping Rep. Maurice Hinchley (D-N.Y.) from working to create this statute in honor of Rodriguez.
During his 1997 initial medial screening upon entering the Marine Corps, a military physician noted in his chart that a melanoma was present on his buttocks, but failed to inform Rodriguez or pass the information on to other physicians.
While serving in Iraq in 2005, Rodriguez visited a military physician complaining of an area on his buttocks that was oozing puss and blood. He was told it was a wart, given a bandage and returned to duty in the field.
“By that time, they could have done something,” his sister laments. “It was clear this was something that required further treatment, but he got nothing but some bandages.”
When Rodriguez finally had the disease correctly diagnosed, it was too late. Despite three surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy treatment, the once-robust 190-pound Leatherneck shriveled to 80 pounds and perished with his family at his bedside last year.
He left behind a seven year-old son.
To add insult to this plight, his family had to turn to Hinchley’s office for his medical records dating back to his initial 1997 screening when the Marine Corps failed to supply them to civilian physicians.
“What’s amazing to us is that he never turned against the Marine Corps,” his sister said. “He loved the military so much, especially the brotherhood with his Marines. For him, this process would be about protecting his Marines and not about the money. He was never about the money.”
Jeff Lieberson works in Hinchley’s office and has been instrumental in drafting the act.
“Prisoners in this country are able to sue doctors if they receive negligent care, but the men and women protecting our country are not. There is something wrong with that,” Lieberson said in an interview with *************.
Lieberson stressed the proposed changes will only impact medical malpractice.
“This law does not apply in a combat situation,” he said. “We understand that in the heat of the battle things will happen. That’s a much different situation than cases like Sgt. Rodriguez’s.”
Under Hinchley’s proposal, families would be able to seek redress of alleged malpractice dating back to January 1997. Hinchley summed up his feelings on the matter in a June 5 letter to Rep. Ike Skelton, (D- Mo.), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee and Rep. John Conyers, (D-Mich.), Chairman on the House Committee on the Judiciary.
“It is the responsibility of Congress to aggressively examine this issue out of respect to the sacrifices our servicemen and women have made in order to serve our country,” Hinchley wrote.
“Those sacrifices and service surely merit Congress taking the time to hold a discussion of the circumstances that face the men and women of the armed forces.”
Cragnotti, whose son suffers lifelong disabilities due to alleged military medical malpractice, said the law is vital to create accountability in the military’s medical community.
“It’s not about the money, not matter what anyone says. It’s about accountability and the individuals in the military who are hiding behind the Feres Doctrine,” she said.
Lieberman said the bill is expected to go before the full House Judiciary Committee sometime before the fall recess.
For Ivette Rodriguez, who lost her parents to AIDS and her brother to cancer, the early success of the bill is bittersweet.
“I watched my brother grow up to be a great man, a great father and a great Marine and then I watched him suffer when he didn’t have to suffer,” she said. “This is the right thing to do and we know this is what he would have wanted.”
Ellie