• 15
  • August
    2011

When doctors are negligent or careless they can cause serious injury or even death. The amount of money needed to deal with severe medical issues after doctors mess up can be quite high. There are often high medical bills to fix an error, money to compensate for pain and suffering, and occasionally for wrongful death. An Orlando doctor has just been found liable for medical malpractice and is starting to understand just how hefty medical malpractice awards can be.

The doctor was found liable for giving a woman an abortion at 22.3 weeks and causing severe permanent injury to the woman's child. The woman's lawsuit claims that the doctor agreed to give the woman an abortion, even though she only thought she was between 16 to 20 weeks pregnant. It also alleges that clinic staff gave her 12 doses of one abortion drug and one does of another within 12 hours. The drugs were meant to induce labor and expel a non-viable fetus.

The woman says that while she was waiting for the labor to stop, she was told to leave the Orlando Woman's Center. In the middle of the night, she was forced to go to an emergency room where she delivered a viable infant via cesarean section. This child, however, was premature, disabled, disfigured, impaired and has permanent injuries, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

The doctor's medical license was also suspended at the time he performed the abortion. The Florida Board of Medicine had suspended his license because he had performed a third-trimester abortion in 2005. The Board suspended him for a year and fined him $10,000. Third-trimester abortions are illegal in Florida unless two doctors can certify that the woman's life is at risk and the abortion is performed in a hospital.

The jury award included $18.7 million to cover the costs of future medical costs for the woman's daughter and an $18 million award to punish the doctor. The doctor is fighting for a new trial and for the $36.7 million dollar award to be set aside.

Source: Orlando Sentinel, "Will judge reverse $36M verdict in abortion case?" Anthony Colarossi, Aug. 13, 2011