Tequesta Man Sues Hospital Over ER Death

By Phil Galewitz, The Palm Beach Post, Fla.

Mar. 7–Mary Stone, a preschool teacher at Jupiter Academy, did everything right when she lost control of her left side and began suffering other stroke symptoms during her morning drive to work.

Stone, 53, of Tequesta, immediately used her cellphone to call a family member who, in turn, called paramedics. They rushed her to Jupiter Medical Center shortly after 7 a.m., and the hospital quickly diagnosed her condition with a CT scan, which showed bleeding on the right side of her brain. She needed a neurosurgeon to operate to relieve the pressure.

But on that day — Sept. 30, 2003 — Jupiter Medical didn’t have a neurosurgeon on call and didn’t have an agreement with another local hospital to handle its emergency neurosurgery patients. Her husband, Sammy, believes that the delay in care caused her death and last month filed suit against the hospital in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.

“The hospital let her down, and she was a person who always was in the forefront of helping everybody,” Sammy Stone said. “For her to be betrayed like that was unbearable. I would be negligent if I did not bring this problem to public attention.”

Jupiter Medical officials declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said the hospital now has full ER coverage — either with neurosurgeons or through transfer agreements.

According to the suit, Stone and her family waited all day in the hospital ER as officials tried to find a neurosurgeon to treat her. Though she could talk when she arrived, her condition deteriorated that afternoon and she had to be connected to a machine to help her breathe. At 6 p.m., she was transferred by air ambulance to Shands Hospital in Gainesville, where she was operated on. On Oct. 18, she died of complications from the stroke.

In April 2004, Jupiter Medical officials acknowledged that from December 2003 to April 2004, the hospital did not have any neurosurgeons treating emergency patients, nor an agreement to transfer such patients to another medical center.

The state’s rules regarding emergency coverage require hospitals to get state approval before reducing or eliminating emergency coverage. Jupiter Medical did not do that.

Because Jupiter Medical performs elective neurosurgery, state rules require the hospital to offer emergency neurosurgery care around the clock, either by its own doctors or through a transfer agreement with a nearby hospital. In April 2004, Jupiter struck a deal with St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach to take its emergency neurosurgical patients. Jupiter Medical now has neurosurgeons to cover its ER for two weeks each month, and transfer agreements with JFK Medical Center in Atlantis and St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach to cover the rest of the time, said spokeswoman Christine Bennett.

Jupiter Medical is one of several hospitals in Palm Beach County that have struggled in the past three years to have enough neurosurgeons and other specialists to treat emergency patients.

To improve stroke care statewide, state officials now have a stroke certification system to ensure that patients know which hospitals can treat stroke victims.

JFK, Bethesda Memorial Hospital in Boynton Beach and Delray Medical Center in suburban Delray Beach are the only certified primary stroke centers in the county.

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