As a graduate of Baylor Law School, I’m familiar with the two main Waco hospitals, Providence Health Center and Baylor Scott & White Medical Center—Hillcrest. Even though I moved to Houston and have my office there, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to represent multiple clients in McLennan County in medical malpractice cases.
As much as Waco has grown because of Magnolia fame and other reasons, it’s still a small town in many ways. One of them is that everyone seems to know everyone, particularly in the medical and legal communities.
Unfortunately, local doctors often don’t want to testify that another physician did something wrong. And many Waco attorneys are unwilling to accept a medical malpractice case in the area, possibly because they know the local doctors or are concerned that they might be a patient at one of the two big hospitals one day.
As a Houston, Texas medical malpractice attorney, none of those concerns bothers me. I’m able to look at the potential case on its merits and I’m not afraid to sue Waco area hospitals or healthcare providers. In recent years, I’ve filed lawsuits on behalf of clients against Providence Health Center and Waco-area surgeons David Hoffman, M.D. and Karen Burnett, M.D.
I’m currently representing a client in a wrongful death medical malpractice case involving post-surgical sepsis at Providence Health Center. Of course, infection is a known complication of pretty much any surgery. That’s why the standard of care requires nurses, hospital employees, and physicians to watch patients carefully after surgery to make sure that nothing has gone wrong.
If an infection goes undiagnosed, the patient can develop a dangerous system-wide inflammatory reaction called sepsis. When sepsis goes untreated, it can cause organ damage and often progresses into septic shock, causing the patient to die.
That’s exactly what happened in this pending Waco case. A patient went in to Providence Health Center for a straightforward elective surgery. Her stomach was perforated, but the surgeon didn’t order a CT scan and discover it until it was too late. The patient went into septic shock and died.
As part of my research into Providence Health Center, I looked into the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports on the quality of care provided at this hospital. According to Medicare, Providence Health Center performs well below the national and Texas averages with regard to the percentage of patients who received appropriate care for severe sepsis and septic shock. Here’s what Medicare reports:
• Providence Health Center: 32% of patients received appropriate severe sepsis and septic shock care
• Texas average: 52% of patients received appropriate severe sepsis and septic shock care
• National average: 52% of patients received appropriate severe sepsis and septic shock care
If you or a family member has been seriously injured because of poor sepsis or other care at Providence Health Center, I encourage you to contact a top-rated Texas medical malpractice attorney about your potential medical malpractice or wrongful death case. You may find that it makes sense to contact an attorney in Houston, who is not affected by the cozy local relationships between some hospitals, doctors, and lawyers.
