A Question Of Care: Military Malpractice?

Wow this pissed me off so much, I am shaking
Video which you really should see, but Sgt. Rodriguez's suffering is very graphic.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3776975n

CBS) Carmelo Rodriguez was dancing with his niece just last year. By all accounts Rodriguez, a 29-year old, loved life, his family and the Marine Corps. He was also an artist, a father, and a part-time actor. He once appeared with Katie Holmes in a scene on the TV series Dawson's Creek.

An image of Sgt. Rodriguez with his Marine buddies in Iraq in 2005 shows him as a fit, gung-ho platoon leader.

CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts met Rodriguez two months ago. That once-buff physique had been whittled down to less than 80 pounds in 18 months by stage 4 melanoma. He was surrounded by family, including his 7-year-old son holding his hand. It was Rodriguez's idea we meet.

When Sgt. Rodriguez was in Iraq, military doctors, he says, misdiagnosed his skin cancer. They called it "a wart."

Eight minutes after Pitts met Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez, and CBS News was preparing to interview him, he died.

At his family's insistence, Pitts and the camera crew stayed. With his body in the very next room, Pitts sat down with his relatives.

Pitts asked: "Why have us here for such a painful moment for your family?"

" His wish to have this known, because he doesn't want any other soldier to fight for his country and go through what he had to go through," said Rodriguez's uncle, Dean Ferraro. "To be neglected."

"He said, 'don't let this be it. Don't let this be it. Fight!'" his sister, Elizabeth Rodriguez, said. "That's what we're doing. We're gonna fight for him."

The "fight," as they call it is over what's known as the Feres Doctrine, a 1950 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bars active-duty military personnel and their families from suing the federal government for injuries incidental to their service. In other words, unlike every other U.S. citizen, people in the military cannot sue the federal government for medical malpractice.

"When he enlisted in 1997, from his initial medical checkup - you know what I mean, physical - the doctor documented that he had melanoma, but never told him 'have anyone follow up on it,'" Ferraro said. "And that was back in '97. If we would have known back in '97, he would still be with us."

CBS News was given a copy of that medical report. The doctor notes skin as "abnormal." In further details he describes it as "melanoma on the right buttocks." There's no recommendation for further treatment.

Eight years pass. Sgt. Rodriguez is in Iraq.

"If a birthmark is about that big , and … it has a raise like that and is pussing, just let it go and say it's a wart??" his sister, Elizabeth, said. "Who does that; how does that happen? It's not right. It's not right."

His uncle Wilfredo Negron said: "Twenty-nine years old! You know all his life is good. Never into drugs, never into partying. Served his country faithfully. Served his Lord faithfully! He held on positive because he's a warrior. He's a Marine. He fought for his country and also for his family."

According to a veterans group that tracks soldiers who are misdiagnosed, there are hundreds of misdiagnosed cases across the country.

Twenty-five-year-old Air Force Staff Sgt. Dean Patrick Witt was one of them. Witt's family says his appendicitis was repeatedly misdiagnosed. After emergency surgery, Witt ended up brain dead.

He later died.

If we would have known back in '97, he would still be with us.
Rodriguez's uncle, Dean Ferraro
Pitts spoke with Military law expert Eugene Fidell, who is an attorney.

"You talk to military families who believe they have a malpractice case against the military and you tell them what?" Pitts asked.

"It's very very difficult when I get these calls, and I get these calls repeatedly over the course of a year. I probably get one ever couple months," Fidell said. "These people have to be made to understand that the law simply doesn't permit them to bring a lawsuit. They can bring a lawsuit, but their lawsuit will be a complete waste of time."

Pitts showed Fidell a copy of Rodriguez's medical records.

Military emails show that Sgt. Rodriguez's commanding officer, Lt. Col B.W. Barnhill, quotes a military nurse who called Rodriquez case "a major screw up."

An email also reads: "He should have been immediately seen and the wart removed and we may not have gotten to where we are now."

Pitts said to Fidell: "When he's in Iraq, the doctor says we'll have someone look at it when you get back to the states in five months."

He shook his head. "If I had a comparable condition myself, or a member of my family had, and somebody would have said, 'sorry, no one can see you for five months,' I would have fired the doctor!"

But Rodriguez didn't have that option.

"No, he didn't. I hope members of Congress are watching this show," Fidell said. "The law has got to change."

What's the military's response?

"I'm not prepared to discuss the Feres Doctrine," said Navy Capt. William Roberts, the medical officer of the Marine Corps.

Three weeks after CBS News' initial request, the Pentagon granted an interview with Roberts.

But he wouldn't discuss the Feres Doctrine, or Rodriquez's case, saying it was "under investigation."

Find out more about how Byron Pitts reported this story at Couric & Co.
FYI: Find out how to make your voice heard on this issue.

As for how many cases like the sergeants?

"I do not have those numbers at all," Roberts said.

Is that because those numbers don't exist or he can't provide them?

"I certainly don't know them," he said.

"If Carmelo Rodriguez was a civilian, his family would have the right to seek damages," Pitts said.

"I am sorry but I can't comment on the legality of that type of redress," he said.

For the Rodriguez family - the best they can hope for is a final report?

"They will get a final report if they ask for it," Roberts said.

Because he was a Marine, Sgt. Carmelo Rodriquez received a military funeral. But, it was an honor his family paid for.

As it turns out, Rodgriquez was forced into retirement due to his illness. Since he was retired, the military was no longer obligated to pay for his funeral.

His son, Carmelo Rodriquez IV, was shown the gratitude of a grateful nation: An American flag - and 55 percent of his father's benefits.

For those who would say these young men and women sign that line saying I turn my life over to the U.S. Military, hey willingly give up some of their rights?

"George Washington said that when a person puts on the uniform, he does not cede being a citizen," Eugene Fidell said.

Rodriguez was a citizen.

But to his family and his friends, he was a so much more.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/31/eveningnews/main3776580.shtml

it makes everyone so angry.
But wow, I mean this is just unconscionable . I just don't understand...

:(

People in prison have a right to file a malpractice lawsuit but people protecting our freedom do not? This question points to military members' and their families' plight after slowing realizing the lost of significant individual rights. And, this is an intense revelation given the known state of medical horrors in prisons.

Think instantly about the Feres Doctrine the next time someone mentions a Supreme Court appointment.

Feres Doctrine: “A legal doctrine that prevents people who are injured as a result of military service from successfully suing the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The doctrine comes from the U.S. Supreme Court case Feres v. United States, in which servicemen who picked up highly radioactive weapons fragments from a crashed airplane were not permitted to recover damages from the government. Also known as the Feres-Stencel doctrine or the Feres rule.”

Petition in Support Of Abolishing The Feres Doctrine
Veterans Equal Rights Advocacy

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Military Families Battle Feres Doctrine

Imagine your son is taken to a hospital where he is first treated for the wrong injury, then misdiagnosed and ultimately declared brain dead before you can even reach his side. Now imagine being told that you cannot hold accountable those responsible for your son's death because a 55-year-old law, called the Feres Doctrine, protects them.

That is the situation facing the family of Marine recruit Justin Haase who died in December 2001 at the age of 18 after contracting a severe case of bacterial meningitis at a Marine boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina. Military doctors treated Haase with penicillin despite an allergy to the medication.

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Active-duty military can't sue for malpractice

Nearly five years ago, Army Staff Sgt. Michael McClaran had laproscopic surgery at Tripler Army Medical Center to fix his indigestion and acid reflux.

The operation partly corrected the problem — and created more, according to his wife.

Although McClaran didn't know it at the time, the surgeon mistakenly severed two nerves, one of which left half of McClaran's diaphragm paralyzed, Sheila McClaran said.

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Military medical malpractice: Seeking recourse

Dean Witt’s widow, Alexis, holds their son, Noah, 4, with daughter Hannah, 5. She is determined to challenge the Feres doctrine — a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that prevents the bereaved family from suing for malpractice — in court.

Outrage over a recent spate of incidents spurs fresh efforts to overturn the Feres doctrine, a 1950 Supreme Court decision denying active-duty service members the right to sue over medical errors.

You really ought to start a new thread with your links in the OP.

Let everyone know what the Feres doctrine is and how it is important; it's a completely different topic than this thread.

He had a severe knee injury during the first Iraqi war that required surgery.
Because of his security clearance classification and where he was, they would not permit him to be put to sleep for surgery so it was gerryrigged the best way they could without any type of anesthesia.
He is crippled to this day without any recourse.
It really sucks.

when you go into the service.
It should go without saying, that if a person makes that kind of sacrifice, they should always get the best of care.
They put the POTUS under for surgery, who has more clearance that that?

In a battlefield...that assurance is not there.
Our soldiers are in a lose-lose.

can nevertheless be anesthetized. The way it works is that they try to have only cleared people on the surgical team (flying them in if necessary and possible), and in any event they put a cleared person with need-to-know in the operating room. If the patient does say anything intelligible and classified, the surgical team members are debriefed and sign a Title 18 form acknowledging that they know disclosure would be a federal crime (20 years in Ft Leavenworth for breach).

The idea that they couldn't give anesthesia is just ridiculous. If they didn't do it, then somebody effed up in a major, major way.

K&R