Dear Rep Steve King:
You are not my Congressional Representative but since you
introduced H.R. 1215, I am addressing this letter to you. As a mother of a
child whose life was destroyed by medical negligence in 2007, I am deeply
concerned with what you’ve proposed.
Representative King, have you ever had a family member
harmed by medical negligence? Have you ever sat by your child’s bed wondering
if the next breath will be her last? Have you had your child’s scull removed
because her brain continued to swell from a stroke brought on by a negligent physician
prescribing a drug for a condition your child didn’t have – off label use of a drug.
Have you seen your child’s head swollen so big that she was not recognizable and
have you had your heart race every time the heart monitor or the monitor
measuring blood flow to the brain started to beep because the numbers were
either too high or too low?
Have you sat in an ICU and watched other mother’s
(parents) lose their children and while praying for them praying all the while
that yours don’t code (cardiac arrest) too. Have you sat night after night in a
rocking chair waiting and watching, afraid to leave your child’s bedside because
she’s been declared braindead knowing everyone thinks you’re crazy for believing
she’ll awakened from the coma.
Have you had to spend five months away from your other
children while sitting at the bedside of another who was fighting for her life?
Consequently, missing moments that won’t be recaptured. Missing the basketball
games of your older son’s last years in high school. Missing parent’s night,
when the parents of seniors are honored but your child has to have someone
else’s mom to stand in your stead because you are away in the hospital with his
sibling. Missing the geography bee of your youngest son, again, because you are
sitting at the bedside of the child fighting for life. Representative King, I
ask you, “have you ever experience this?” What do you think it costs? Or can
there be a price placed on it?
And finally, as one of the parents responsible
financially for your family, have you ever had to resign your job, give up your
house, change your lifestyle completely to bring home a thirteen-year-old who
was once vibrant and full of life but because of a brain injury brought on by a
preventable medical error, has been reverted back to an infant state. What
would you do in this case Representative King? I was told to place my child in
a long term care facility. The prognosis was grim, but I brought her home. In
February of 2008, I returned home with my thirteen year old daughter and the
only tasks she could perform was holding a fork and she could sit up. It took a
while before she was able to perform her self-care again. It took a year before
she was able to walk again. Even today she is still progressing recovering from
the preventable medical error. Her life, my family’s life, nor mine will ever be
the same. So many losses none recoverable. So Representative what caps do you
place on this, $250,000?
Representative King, I wish my experience on no one,
but I wish before people like you and your cosponsors of bills like H.R. 1215, legislature
created to protect those who harm patients, seriously consider the families
harmed by negligent medical professionals instead of trying to protect the medical
professionals and the insurance companies after serious harm has occurred. Consider
the families and the irreparable damage inflicted upon them because they
trusted the medical professional to do no harm. And while you consider that,
consider what it would cost you to have walked in our shoes. Then seriously
think about the limits you place on noneconomic damages. These are the damages that
affect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Can there be a limit on
taking that away from a person and their family? Is $250,000 reasonable after
destroying years of a person’s life and their family’s?
Sincerely,
Veverly Edwards
Mother of Robyn Edwards
Declared braindead in 2007 from a preventable medical
error.
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