Question on Quality of Medical Care Too Late for Brain-Damaged Man
After more than 30 years on auto assembly lines and 20 years as a union official, Jim Del Conte was at the pinnacle of his career.
Then a simple industrial accident, a lengthy series of medical procedures and a doctor’s error left him with the mental faculties of a child--and his peers with questions about adequate medical care.
“I think what has happened to Jim Del Conte is horrible. I love him like a brother, and really feel for him and his family,” said Rudy Kuzel, a longtime friend and bargaining chairman for United Auto Workers Local 72.
Del Conte’s case was often cited by workers and union officials this summer after Chrysler Corp. announced it was challenging the quality of medical care available to workers at its now-closed Kenosha assembly plant.
Refusing to Pay
Chrysler is refusing to pay about 200 workers’ compensation claims, and is reviewing an additional 300 medical bills. The auto maker said it made the decision after an outside consultant determined that care treatment of many injured former workers was “inappropriate, unreasonable and excessive.”
Del Conte’s is not believed to be one of the disputed claims.
Because Chrysler has said it will not hold the workers liable for the bills and will provide them with legal assistance, union officials’ response has been favorable.
“I wish this would have happened five years ago, because maybe all that wouldn’t have happened to Jimmy,” Kuzel said.
Kuzel said rumors of bad medical treatment have circulated among workers for more than a decade, and he hopes Chrysler’s challenge “will give everybody their day in court.”
Del Conte, 58, was an executive board member of UAW Local 72 for 20 years. His hard work and friendly demeanor made him popular among the city’s blue- and white-collar ranks.
Hoped for Retirement
His wife, Rose Marie, said that her husband looked forward to retiring to spend more time with her, his five children and eight grandchildren.
Instead, he now spends most of his time sitting at home, dependent on his family for care. His brain is damaged and he is partially paralyzed from the waist up. His speech is broken.
“Dad is more like a 5-year-old sometimes than a grandfather,” said Michelle Scuglik, Del Conte’s 37-year-old daughter, who remembers her father as active, strong and consumed with work.
Del Conte’s troubles began in February, 1983, when he slipped and fell on ice at the Kenosha plant, then owned by American Motors Corp. The plant was sold in 1987 to Chrysler and closed last December. About 5,000 people lost their jobs.
Del Conte developed low back pain and was hospitalized twice, for a total of about two weeks, immediately after the accident.
Referred to Doctor
According to legal documents and court testimony, Del Conte was referred to Dr. Galo Tan, who has offices in Gurnee, Ill., and is on the staff of American International Hospital in Zion, Ill.
Under Tan’s care, he was hospitalized several times in 1986 and 1987. In February, 1986, Tan performed a cervical laminectomy, in which bone spurs believed to be pinching nerves and causing pain were removed from a vertebra in Del Conte’s neck.
The pain continued. Del Conte was hospitalized several more times, exposed to nearly 100 X-rays and given a variety of treatments, including nerve blocks, in which painkilling medicine was injected.
In December, 1987, about a year after he retired, Del Conte entered American Hospital for the last time, complaining--as he had in the past--of back and neck pain and headaches.
Tan wrote orders for Dr. Celan T. Ordonez, an anesthesiologist at American, to perform another nerve block, this time in the upper spine near the site of the earlier laminectomy.
Used Anesthesia
Ordonez performed the nerve block Dec. 15, 1987, using, among other drugs, Marcaine, a strong, long-lasting anesthesia.
Within minutes, Del Conte went into cardiac arrest and then a coma. He was revived but remained in a semi-comatose state through February, 1988.
Del Conte was transferred to Froedtert Memorial Hospital in Wauwatosa. For more than three months, his family traveled 40 miles from Kenosha each day to be with him.
Del Conte was later transferred to Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Hospital in Milwaukee for therapy and then released to his family. He still undergoes therapy twice a week.
Del Conte’s lawyer, James A. Pitts of Racine, said his client has only partial use of his arms, has difficulty speaking clearly and has an IQ of about 80 because of brain damage.
Pitts filed a lawsuit against Tan and Ordonez on behalf of the Del Contes.
Settle out of Court
Ordonez’s insurance carrier settled out of court for $920,000. Of that, $75,000 went to reimburse the Del Contes’ insurance carrier for medical bills.
A U.S. District Court jury in Illinois acquitted Tan of any wrongdoing in connection with the coma. Pitts had argued that Tan should be held responsible because he ordered the treatment that led to the mishap.
But defense witnesses testified that such a procedure could be performed safely and that only Ordonez, the anesthesiologist, could be held responsible.
Pitts said the Del Contes’ lawsuit challenged only the procedure that led to the coma and did not raise the question of whether Del Conte’s overall course of treatment was excessive.
“That was not the issue, but it would have been nice if that stuff came in. . . . That may be a separate issue of whether there was over-treatment here,” Pitts said.
Issue Not a Factor
Although the issue of over-treatment was not a factor in the civil trial, it was mentioned in documents accompanying the lawsuit. Many referred to the countless X-rays and hospitalizations Del Conte endured.
Dr. David S. Dahl, chairman of neurology at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, criticized the “low level of documentation and general competency” in the Del Conte case and the “over-reliance on epidural injections for treatment.”
While Chrysler challenges the medical care other workers received, the Del Contes will be able to live comfortably because of a pension, Social Security disability checks and the settlement, Pitts said.
