Posted on 12/28/2002 7:22:06 AM PST by mountaineer
More than a dozen surgeons at the area's two largest hospitals will be off the job starting Jan. 1 to protest rising medical malpractice insurance premiums in West Virginia.
Wheeling Hospital Administrator and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Donald Hofreuter said 12 surgeons in the orthopedic, thoracic-cardiovascular and general surgery departments have filed for leaves of absence starting Wednesday, with another surgeon scheduled to take leave Jan. 3. Brian Felici, incoming president and CEO of Ohio Valley Medical Center, said 12 surgeons in the same specialties at his facility have also filed for leaves of absence.
At Wheeling Hospital, out of eight surgeons in the orthopedic surgery department, four filed for leaves of absence. In general surgery, three of the seven surgeons filed. Cardiovascular surgery will lose all six of it surgeons.
"As of right now, this looks like it's going to happen," said Wheeling Hospital spokeswoman Lynn Wood.
Hofreuter said Friday afternoon the surgeons' individual actions were prompted by "a lot of concern and frustration'' for the medical malpractice climate in West Virginia. Other hospitals in the area are expected to have similar results.
However, Wheeling Hospital is the only facility in the Upper Ohio Valley region with the capabilities for heart surgery, Hofreuter said. "This service will be removed from the area,'' he said.
The leaves of absence requests are for 30 days, with the option to extend.
The first leave of absence request was submitted on Monday - the 13th on Thursday.
Hofreuter said the immediate effects of the leaves of absence involve a reduction in the surgical services rendered by the hospital.
Most of the 13 surgeons are insured by the West Virginia Board of Risk and Insurance Management. Hofreuter said he has met with the surgeons, local lawmakers, the governor's office and the administration at BRIM in an effort to solve the problem.
"These gentlemen (surgeons) are concerned with the affordability of coverage," Hofreuter said. "We've had seven meetings in the last two weeks."
Hofreuter couldn't say if any other surgeons would step forward and request leaves of absence, adding, "In today's (medical malpractice insurance) climate, I'm ready for anything."
Wheeling Hospital owns its own ambulance company, enabling those patients who need services not offered at the hospital transportation to one that does. Washington Hospital in Washington, Pa. and Trinity West Medical Center in Steubenville both offer cardiac surgery.
"The hospital's not closing," Hofreuter said. "It's been here for 152 years and we're going to continue to serve the public."
Emergency medical services will still be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Hofreuter said Wheeling Hospital's sister facility, Belmont Community Hospital in Bellaire, could see an increase in patient volume in the coming weeks.
At OVMC, Felici said Friday the facility has received letters from about a dozen general, orthopedic, and cardio-thoracic surgeons indicating that as of Jan 1, they will be taking leaves of absence.
"The hospital has, as a result, put a plan into place to deal with this," he said.
All elective surgical procedures scheduled for early 2003 for the particular surgeons have been taken off OVMC's schedule, he said.
Felici said any patients coming to OVMC's EMSTAR unit for medical care will receive care. However, should they require surgical treatment, they would be transported to another facility, he said.
"Patients who present to the ER will be cared for. We're not changing any of our services. The ER will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he said. "We do have protocols in place to transfer patients if need be."
The hospital, he said, has alerted the air ambulance service it has dealt with for helicopter transport of patients requiring neurosurgical care "that the numbers of patients requiring transport are going to go up."
In some cases, patients might be transported to OVMC's sister facility, East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry, he said.
The cases will be dealt with on an individual basis. While some could be transferred to EORH, other patients could be taken to facilities in Morgantown, Columbus, and Pittsburgh, he said.
Felici said the hospital "understands the surgeons' plight" and supports their position to have the West Virginia Legislature reform medical liability insurance laws. He noted that the hospital's medical liability insurance premium runs $10,000 a day.
"We understand what they're trying to accomplish. I want to make that clear," he said.
As to how long the leaves of absences could continue, Felici couldn't say.
"The initial requests of the surgeons indicates it is month to month," he said.
The effects on operations at OVMC could be far-reaching.
He predicted a partial downturn in patient volume at OVMC as well as "some increased volume" at EORH.
"We've put into place a plan for increased support services at East Ohio," he said.
We are looking for a second orthopeadic surgeon at out hospital. At the next medical staff meeting, I'll propose that we target the advertising of our opening to West Virginia surgeons.
The democrats will enrich themselves (or at least their trial lawyer constituency), destroy the trauma and obstetrical system, and have the SHAMELESS gall to demand a federal takeover and universal health system to "correct" the non-functional, lawyer-ravaged system.
Are Bush and Doc Frist smart enough to defeat this evil plan, expand health care access, and enact tort reform? YES!
Which is why more and more "OB/GYN" practices all over the country are turning into "GYN" practices and Family Practitioners are dropping the OB side of their practice.
As one practitioner who dropped OB said when he explained his decision to me, "The outcome for any birth now is either a perfect baby or the Lottery Jackpot. I am not willing to risk being the Lottery Jackpot any longer."
If the trend continues, Americans might have to go back to delivering babies at home with a local mid-wife like they did back in great-grandma's time.
Or they can call their malpractice lawyer to come over and help deliver the baby.
1) Get mailing lists and office phones of Mississippi, West Virginia, and Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) physicians. All have horrific environments for orthopedists. Should be readily available from the state/county medical societies.
2) Write and call each EMPHASIZING THE DECENT LIABILITY CLIMATE OF YOUR LOCAL HOSPITAL. This will be music to their long suffering ears.
3) You will get a boat-load of follow-up responses and a great new orthopedist in no time. Good luck!
It is the general surgeon who is the de facto trauma surgeon in many communities. That is, you get in a car wreck, he sews you back together.
The article states "our emergency rooms are up and operating." What a laugh. Not to run down the ER docs, but a trauma center does not live up to the name without a general surgeon on call and ready. And those ER docs, without a surgeon handy, are going to get the blame when things don't turn out well, and will be leaving WV, too.
I doubt this has any progressive bearing on the population's general healthcare... Is this just a case of "backwoods southern lawyers" seizing on a situation ripe for opportunity? Because I imagine it abounds in WV-- enough opportunity for perceived inattentiveness/malpractice, and enough hicks willing to try to make a buck off their inbred offspring's hairlip or whathaveyou...
I have yet to meet anybody from West Virginia of whom I thought much...
...present company excluded, of course. ;) [attempts to remove feet from mouth]
West Virginia and Mississippi are very poor, but are home to many wonderful, beautiful people.
Unfortunately the corrupt lawyer industry is powerful and exccedingly rich, like bad villians in a John Grisham novel. Think of lawyer Trent Lott and his relative the notorious billionaire tobacco crook shyster Dickie Scruggs. They are amazing well connected, and the judges and juries are paid off, according to newspaper articles and 60 Minutes investigations.
Yeah I know... I lived in MS for a couple years actually and there were some great folks down there... I guess I just had the bad luck to run into some real doozies from WV...
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Well, then, that's all that matters, doesn't it?
West Virginians traditionally are hard-working, independent and patriotic (a higher percentage of residents are veterans than you'll find in most states, for example), but a few decades of the welfare state have turned them into the sort of people who file lawsuits every time they or a family member suffers a medical problem. Personal injury lawyers feed this "you deserve money for your injury" attitude, irrespective of the lack of fault on the part of the doctors and hospitals.
Yep, I'd say that sort of thing ain't peculiar to WV... "Inadequate staffing" to notice and address the problem in time? Hell's bells, where would one draw the line on THAT one?! Makes it hard to drudge up much of any Christian charity for folks like that...
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Many moons ago I read something to this effect. The writer had done the math and pointed out that even if every member of congress got paid a $1,000,000 a year, tax free but got no pensions, no retirement "benefits", etc. the US Treasury (and the US taxpayer, of course) would save $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ -- serious money.
After all, in what other job do you qualify for full retirement + a golden parachute after only 2 years on the job?
Or import foreign doctors?
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