The U.S. Gave Troubled Doctors a Second Chance, Patients Paid the Price
By Christopher Weaver, Dan Frosch and Lisa Schwartz
Today’s Wall Street Journal Highlighted a horrendous scandal. That is, the Indian Health Service (IHS) hired dozens of physicians with multiple medical mistakes and regulatory sanctions. Let me summarize their findings:
66 patients died in Indian Health Services Care
3 had criminal convictions
18 had medical licenses that were sanctioned or revoked
33 had multiple medical malpractice claims
In brief, with a callous disregard for the safety of Native Americans, the IHS hired incompetent doctors. Their disregard for red flags about these physicians led to needless deaths. The IHS in many cases did not inquire about the physicians’ work histories
IHS officials hired doctors whom state regulators had punished for transgressions such as drug addiction or sexual misconduct. One doctor who was sanctioned by a state medical board after a patient accused him of sexually abusing her during a surgical exam found work with the IHS, records show. Three IHS managers later vouched for him when he successfully petitioned a licensing board to lift the restrictions
The IHS’s network of hospitals and clinics treats some of America’s poorest communities, beset by high rates of diabetes, alcohol-related deaths and other chronic diseases. The agency for decades has been criticized by Native Americans and government watchdogs for lax and dangerous care, including by the main U.S. hospital regulator.
On many reservations, there are no doctors because the Vacancy rate is high, some 29%. Former agency leaders who struggled with the task of filling these slots said in interviews they resorted to compromises. Michele Gemelas, a former IHS official who wrote the agency’s guide to credentialing, said the agency faces situations where “you get three candidates who come through and they all seem not great. But what you do is choose the lesser of three evils.”
The IHS’s oversight of doctors came under renewed scrutiny earlier this year when the Journal and the PBS series Frontline revealed the agency had long ignored complaints that a South Dakota pediatrician, Stanley Patrick Weber, sexually abused young male patients. Mr. Weber, who has been convicted in two trials and filed an appeal, was moved from one IHS hospital to another despite mounting allegations against him.
Sadly, the government has records that specify the misconduct of many of these doctors. Despite that they continued to keep them employed. An example is Franklin Wolf, a surgeon who was sued for malpractice at least 11 times in Pennsylvania over an eight-year period. One patient claimed Dr. Wolf left a leak after a colon surgery, leading to a serious infection and a long hospital stay. The case settled for an unspecified amount without Dr. Wolf responding to the allegations, court records show. At least three of the lawsuits were either dropped or dismissed with regard to Dr. Wolf.
Surgeon Juni Femi-Pearse was hit with almost a dozen malpractice lawsuits by 2006, according to court and licensing records. His malpractice insurer, at one point, said in a letter that it would discontinue his coverage in part “due to prior claims activity,” including one case that later settled for $675,000. That case involved a routine surgery that went awry, leading to a double amputation and, months later, a patient’s death.
Dr. Femi-Pearse had the kind of conduct issues that trigger medical-board sanctions. In 2004, Norton Community Hospital, in Virginia, suspended him after a patient complained he sexually abused her during a checkup after surgery.
In 2003, a Massachusetts hospital suspended Dr. Fleishhacker, and the state’s medical board alleged in 2005 that he had shown a pattern of “practicing medicine with negligence” in five surgical cases. Years later, after he had left the IHS, the Massachusetts medical board barred him from surgeries.
When Annicol Marrocco was hired as a contractor at the Shiprock, N.M., IHS hospital in 2012, she had been disciplined by medical boards in Florida and New York for prescribing pain pills for her then boyfriend, board records say. On a single day, she prescribed 1,350 oxycodone pills, the records say.
Currently, the agency has no policy on how to deal with doctors who have restricted licenses. Because the government covers malpractice claims, IHS doctors do not carry their own coverage. The doctors do not pay any settlement out of their own pockets.
Today, there is frequent discussion about our Government taking over our medical system despite the terrible record had Veterans Hospitals and now the Indian Heal Service Hospitals. I believe strongly until the government improves care at these facilities we would be making a major mistake in eliminating our current system.
Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune
