VA surgeon may not have been thoroughly checked before hiring...more information pending upon release on this story...BD
They were the last words Katrina Shank ever heard from him. Her husband never woke up from surgery, and by the next day he had bled to death. Shank, it turns out, was far from the only surgical patient to die under Veizaga-Mendez's care.
Nine veterans all in some way linked to Veizaga-Mendez, officials say died in a six-month period ending in March, during which the hospital would have expected only two deaths. Even before Veizaga-Mendez was hired at the Veterans Administration hospital, he had made payouts in two malpractice suits in Massachusetts and was under investigation there on suspicion of botching seven cases, two of which ended in deaths. 'Gigantic problems' How the surgeon came to practice on veterans has raised troubling questions about the VA's screening of its doctors and about how much those who hired him in Illinois did to check his background in Massachusetts.
Veizaga-Mendez, whose Illinois license remains valid pending a December hearing, has no listed telephone number in Illinois and Massachusetts and has been unreachable for comment.
0 comments :
Post a Comment