Dearborn Patch – by Beth Dalbey
In what is believed to be the biggest jury award in the state’s history, a Michigan hospital was ordered Wednesday to pay $21 million to the family of a woman who mistakenly received brain surgery when she was supposed to have a simple jaw realignment.
Bimia Nayyar, 81, of Bellevue died 60 days after the mixup following 60 days on life support.
“In my 37 years of law practice I have never seen a more terrible, horrific case – what they did to a poor woman – and then lied about it,” the family’s attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, told WWJ/CBS Detroit after a Wayne County Circuit Court jury’s record award to Nayyar’s family.
In a statement, Oakwood Healthcare admitted no wrongdoing and said it plans to appeal the verdict.
“We’re very concerned about how the details of this case have been portrayed,” hospital officials said. Paula Rivera-Kerr, spokeswoman for Oakwood Healthcare, told the Detroit Free Press she couldn’t comment further on the case.
Nayyar was admitted to Oakwood’s Dearborn hospital in January 2012 for a procedure Fieger compared to something that can be done in a dentist’s chair.”
“Instead,” he alleged, “they took off the right side of her head, and killed her.”
The lawyer said hospital staff mixed up Nayyar’s x-rays with those of another patient, drilled five holes in her head and sawed off the right side of her skull, then “ poked around in her brain before realizing they had the wrong patient.”
Fieger said neither the family nor the state of Michigan were informed of the mistake, according to The Detroit News.
“After (Oakwood) knew, they let her die,” he said, alleging the hospital didn’t admit the mistake until two years later, and “never wrote in her chart they had the wrong patient.”
Nayyar’s family became suspicious when they noticed her x-rays were different than when she was admitted to the hospital.
Oakwood Healthcare officials admitted in court they had operated on the wrong patient, but said the award should be capped at $400,000 because no harm was done to Nayyar.
However, Fieger said Nayyar “suffered terribly” during the ordeal and the next two months on life support.
Fieger is urging Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy to consider criminal charges in the case. He claims the hospital falsified Nayyar’s medical records.
Precisely why I don’t get near doctors.
Same here Katie. don’t likem …..never did.
Soon after the mandatory vaccines come, there will be mandatory brain surgery to cure non compliance..