West Virginia Surgical Malpractice Lawsuit Settled for $2 Million

A West Virginia hospital has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of a woman who died in 2005 after a surgical mistake resulted in a stomach perforation.

The medical malpractice lawsuit was filed by the family of Genevieve Haught, who died after undergoing surgery to freeze a lesion on her kidney at Weirton Medical Center. Her surgeon, Dr. Jayapal Reddy, perforated Haught’s stomach during surgery, which later got infected and led to her death.

According to the complaint, Dr. Reddy was acting as an assistant to Dr. Hardev Parihar while the physicians were performing a transabdominal lapraroscopic cryoablation because they suspected the lesion on Haught’s kidney might be cancerous. However, neither doctor had any experience performing the procedure.

The settlement for the surgical malpractice lawsuit was reached just before trial was set to begin, preventing a jury from deciding whether the hospital was negligent in allowing the doctors to perform the procedure.

The West Virginia Record reports that Dr. Parihar released a statement indicating that Dr. Reddy was not acting as his assistant during the procedure, denying that he had any control over his actions. In addition, Dr. Parihar also denied that he was untrained to perform the surgery.

A stomach perforation is a serious surgical complication, in which a hole is formd in the wall of the stomach, allowing the contents to leach into the abdominal cavity, potentially causing a deadly infection.