Johnston woman awarded $8.6M in case involving Roger Williams Medical Center

PROVIDENCE – A 54-year-old Johnston resident has been awarded $8.6 million in compensation after suffering permanent injuries from an undiagnosed spinal infection.
The judgement was awarded on Monday by a R.I. Superior Court jury to Elaine Willard after a two-and-a-half-week trial, according to a news release from the law firm of Decof, Decof & Barry P.C.
The release said Willard suffered severe permanent spinal injuries as a result of delayed treatment of a postoperative spinal infection in August 2010.

There was miscommunication over a laboratory result, which showed an abnormal gram stain from fluid around her spine, indicating that the infection was there 48 hours before her doctors knew it was present. That caused the delay in treatment and sepsis to set in, the release said. The woman’s surgically repaired spine was damaged, and the infection ate away at the tissues, muscles and ligaments surrounding her spinal column.

Lead counsel Michael Patrick Quinn of Decof, Decof & Barry, assisted by second chair Marshall Raucci, successfully argued to the jury that Roger Williams Medical Center was negligent in its maintenance of an unclear hospital laboratory policy, known as the Critical Value Policy.
Quinn said doctors and laboratory staff had a different understanding of whether the Critical Value Policy required the gram stain result to be called directly to the doctors.
When the doctors did not receive a phone call, they assumed the result was normal and did not look up the result themselves.
The jury deliberated for one day before delivering its verdict that the hospital was negligent. With prejudgment interest, the $5,500,000 verdict resulted in a judgment of $8,600,000, the release said.

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