The rising number of MRSA legal cases

Link: Hospitals: Infectious Diseases: 26 Feb 2008: Written answers (TheyWorkForYou.com).

Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire, Conservative) | Hansard source

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many claims relating to healthcare associated infections the NHS Litigation Authority has dealt with in each year since 1997.

Ann Keen (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Health Services), Department of Health) | Hansard source

Not all claims related to health care associated infection (HCAI) can be identified. The following table shows those claims where methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and/or Clostridium difficile ( C. difficile) are regarded as one of the injuries.

Information on HCAI-related claims prior to 1999 is not available due to the coding systems in place at that time; which do not allow analysis for HCAIs.

Claims data by notification year (notified to trust) for claims where MRSA and/or C. Difficile are recorded as one of the injuries (as at 31 December 2007).

Number
Notification year	Open claims	Claims closed with no damages	Claims settled with damages	Total claims
1999-2000	0	1	1	2
2000-01	0	3	0	3
2001-02	0	2	8	10
2002-03	3	15	24	42
2003-04	4	34	28	66
2004-05	10	47	15	72
2005-06	35	50	12	97
2006-07	90	26	12	128
2007-08(1)	101	5	4	110
Total	243	180	107	530
(1) Denotes data to date for current period. Source: NHS Litigation Authority.

Comments

[Jeff Simpson]

I contracted MRSA in the Nashville, Davidson County DCSO Metro jail, while being isolated for 10 hours overnight in a filthy and urine and blood contaminated cell with no toilet, no water, no sink, and no seating but for the floor. I was allowed no phone call, or toilet breaks, and was denied medical attention for my having called "911" on a suicide attempt that very day, 4/9/04. I had committed no crimes, was asking for help in highly depressed state, suffering from major depression and severe anxiety disorder. Expected to be taken to hospital, as on prior occasions, but they arrested me(?). Angry at me for their having called out a SWAT team I was later informed by arresting officer and DA. After 10 hours in this filthy cell, they had me assaulted. 20-30 kicks to my back and ribs while I lay on cell floor. Forced me to stand and beat me with fists about my upper body. Slammed me face first into steel cell door, lacerating my forehead and causing blood to flow down my face. My 50th birthday was the next day on Easter Sunday, 4/11/04. I suffered multiple herniated disks in back, broken xiphoid process and rib, badly brused ribs, lacerated forehead, and PTSD. Required emergency surgery by a team of infectious disease specialists who said I could die from the infection getting in my bloodstream and to a vital organ such as brain or heart. Said they may have to amputate my leg. Excised large hole in my leg size of half an orange in width and depth. Hospitalized three days, 4/26/04-4/29/04. Deep wound drained puralent pus and blood for seven months. Also contracted in six other spots on leg, two of which required surgery. Also contracted on left hand. Elderly Mother also contracted it on her hand from having tried to treat my leg prior to hospitalization, not knowing what it was. She also required emergency room treatment.
DCSO/Metro Nashville attempted to put me in prison for 17 years on false charges of two felonies I never committed, which they knew. For eleven months while I was seen by over 15 doctors in 5 hospitals and many clinics to try and cure and rehab my leg and treat my severe back injuries, they were attempting via prosecutorial misconduct to put me in prison!? It was an unbelievable nightmare. Cost me and family everything: physically, emotionally, financially (over $300,000.00 and our home and rental properties, along with our belongings-legal and medical bills were enormous!)
Their bogus charges against me were dismissed due to total lack of evidence as it never happened. Only my call to 911 for help in a suicide attempt happened! And this was what they did to me as a result?
They and their city attorneys chose to surreally deny the whole thing in it's entirety. Said I was never assaulted, never was treated in their jail infirmary by their PHS Infirmary nurse, that I never even reported the assault (even though evidence to the contrary in their own documents say that I did), said I was never a suicide risk and was never treated as such (even though evidence via the recorded 911 call of 4/9/04 shows undeniable proof that I was), a complete and sloppy attempt to cover-up their crimes of intentional assault under color of law. They lied in the ensuing lawsuit (the first in my life), in the Discovery, in the Interrogatories, hid evidence and witnesses, tampered with and altered evidentiary governmental documents (a felony) of which I have proof and physical evidence, they even lied in their summary judgement request in September, 2007, which I was also able to show with proof and evidence. The DCSO violated dozens and dozens of their own stated standard operating procedures approved by their Sheriff Hall, which I was also able to prove and back up with much evidence. Their "good ole boy" network and their "Blue Shield", I came to find stretched far and wide in their conspiratorial cover-up, as the Fed. Judges in Nashville themselves, all grads. of Vanderbilt in Nashville, and all cronies with each other in many ways, much of it financial, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, and because it was their last chance to escape justice before the scheduled jury trial of 3/11/08, allowed their frivolous and untrue summary judgement to deny me of my day in court where I had more than enough evidence to prove my case to any unbiased jury. And they knew this to be true, and this is why they would not allow my court it's constitutional right to it's day in court. Unbelievably and most shamefully and criminally, they dismissed a case they knew should be allowed it's day in court. And in the process trampled over my Constitutional Amendment Rights IV, VI, VIII, and XIV, my Civil Rights, and my ADA Rights. They, as law enforcement officers committed many felonies under color of law in an atempt to cover up their original crime of intentional criminal assault under color of law. They have permanently physically disabled me and put me in constant and unrelenting pain. They robbed me and my family of everything we owned, bankrupted us and made us homeless. They have physically, emotionally, financially, and mentally destroyed our lives. And we were innocent of having done anything of any criminal nature. And they have most unconstitutionally after almost 4 yrs. of pain, torture, torment, and suffering of untold porportions now criminally denied me of even being so much as allowed my day in Court, disregarding and refusing to even regard or acknowledge all of our impossible to disprove evidence and proof, even an eyewitness report and sworn affidavits. They have committed altogether the most horrendous criminal travesty of injustice that I have ever heard of. And they believe they will be allowed to get away with it totally unpunished. They stand to face 2 - 10 years in prison for their crimes in a criminal court which would follow.
The horrible CA-MRSA contracted in their contaminated jail cell was an absolute horror in and of itself which almost cost me life and limb, and for no reason. But to be followed up with their criminal conspiracy to cover-up the horrible and severe intentional assault that crippled me after, and to not be allowed justice as yet after four yrs.(!) is something I just can no longer bear to even think possible in this country of ours. HELP!
BootsfreedomJDS@aol.com

[Jeff Simpson]

A certain woman, Constance Taite, who works for the Metro Government of Nashville, TN, proudly states that "in 2004, there were ONLY 120 cases of MRSA Staph out of 41,000 inmates 'reported.'" "And that the disease was primarily brought INTO the jail's highly sterile environment by the sick and disease-ridden low resistant, unhealthy 'types.'" When presented with the true facts desiminated by the American Medical Association (AMA), she totally disregarded this important and highly useful information contrary to her wrongful beliefs, or at least wrongfully stated beliefs, which presented statistical evidence that 33 cases of MRSA out of 100,000 individuals was considered by the AMA to be 'outrageous,' when her stated percentage of 120 cases per 44,000 individuals was 10 X as high as what the AMA so regarded as being 'outrageous.' The AMA went on to state their statistics showing 33 cases out of 100,000 individuals was worse than the percentage cases and deaths attributable to even that of AIDS. And yet, Ms. Taite's seems proud to ignorantly state her statistics which are even 10 X more outrageous than what the undoubtedly more educated AMA states as being 'outrageous!' She does not even so dare as to divulge the more current statistics of those in 2005, 2006 and 2007 which were undoubtedly much higher as it is everywhere, with the 'public jail system' considered to be the worst hotbed for allowing this disease to replicate and grow, than any other known and tested public arenas in the country and world. Or does she bother to mention the fact that it is only common sense that when these individuals who enter and leave the confines of this contaminated hotbed for MRSA, that these very same individuals who contracted said MRSA in most cases promptly go out and spread their newly acquired pathogen out into the general populace of innocent people of the community such as those obviously "weak" and "dirty" individuals residing in places like Daycare facilities for Children, Military bases for our Soldiers, and Athletes from heralded sporting Teams and Events. I must suppose she thinks these people are 'dirty and sick' with weak immune systems as well?
BootsfreedomJDS@aol.com

[Hugh McGinley]

What a horrible and harrowing story that unfortunately is all too believable to me having encountered similar corruption in Florida and a refusal of the authorities to look at, let alone investigate the evidence we have attempted to present to them. Wake up America, you will not believe these things happen until it happens to you, and then you will wonder why no one does anything about it.