A New York family is suing a Connecticut hospital after a routine emergency visit for their 21-year-old daughter ended in tragedy.
Dale Alice Martin had suffered a broken ankle, but she died just 14 hours after arriving at Waterbury Hospital last year.
Her father, Lindsay Martin, alleges that medical malpractice caused his daughter’s death. The lawsuit, filed against the hospital, was reported by the Hartford Courant.
According to the complaint, attorneys say hospital staff gave Dale such a large amount of pain medication within 14 hours of her admission that she stopped breathing and ultimately died.
The lawsuit claims that no one monitored Dale during that period, while the drugs affecting her breathing also left her heavily sedated.
The complaint states that Dale was unable to summon help as she struggled to breathe. A nurse reportedly checked on her at 7 a.m. on April 10, but by then, the lawsuit alleges, it was too late: her heart had stopped.
Dale and her parents did not know when she arrived that Waterbury Hospital was allegedly facing serious challenges involving staffing, finances and patient care capacity.
At the time, the Connecticut hospital was owned by California-based Prospect Medical Holdings, which had filed for bankruptcy three months before Dale’s death.
Dale Alice Martin, 21, died after going to Waterbury Hospital for treatment of a broken ankle
Her father, Lindsay Martin, is suing the hospital and alleges that an excessive dose of medication caused his daughter to stop breathing
Waterbury Hospital in Connecticut was formerly owned by private equity-backed Prospect Medical Holdings
Lindsay Martin said he had no idea the hospital was reportedly under investigation or that its nurses had allegedly been purchasing food for patients amid severe financial constraints that may have affected its ability to operate safely.
For years, Prospect Medical Holdings operated three hospitals while pursuing profits, critics allege, despite problems including staff shortages, aging equipment and inadequate financial reserves.
Family attorney Christopher Mattei of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder said the lawsuit will examine how much Prospect’s management of Waterbury Hospital may have contributed to the events surrounding Dale’s death.
Mattei said the family expects the investigation to show that the hospital was operating with extremely limited resources. He alleged that Prospect reduced staffing and training while dismantling parts of the hospital’s infrastructure and extracting value in ways that put patient care at risk.
Prospect Medical Holdings no longer operates Waterbury Hospital. The facility is now owned by UConn Health.
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Private equity ownership of hospitals has faced mounting scrutiny. Several studies have associated such facilities with higher rates of patient falls, infections and deaths.
A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported a 13 percent rise in patient deaths in emergency departments operated by private equity-owned healthcare organizations.
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy issued a report the summer after Dale’s death accusing Prospect Medical of using a “buy, strip, flip” business model that involved selling assets while cutting hospital staff.
Prospect Medical Holdings has been accused of prioritizing profit while leaving Waterbury Hospital short of staff, funding and essential medical equipment
Lindsay Martin (left) said: ‘Within 14 hours of admission, providers at the hospital had administered so much pain medication that Dale stopped breathing and later died’
The undergraduate student of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas reportedly also gave piano lessons disadvantaged children
Murphy even proposed a bill with Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania to prevent private equity firms from owning hospitals and nursing homes.
For Dale’s parents, these policies came too late.
After she was declared brain dead, medical staff tried to bring the woman back to life – without success.
‘For three days, we set vigil in her hospital room, listening to the beeping of the monitors and seeing the machines keep her lungs and heart moving, waiting for the expiration of the 72 hours,’ her father told the Hartford Courant.
‘And in that time, you know, we kept asking: “How did this happen?”‘
Doctors turned off the ventilator that the 21-year-old was hooked up to on April 13.
‘It’s incredibly difficult to wrap your head around how this can happen in a hospital that’s supposed to be a house of healing,’ her father said.
Dale was an undergraduate student at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas but taking a sabbatical to do farm work in Bethlehem.
She was also volunteering as a music teacher for disadvantaged children.
Our News Outlet contacted Waterbury Hospital for comment.
