$625,000 Settlement OKd in Hospital Death
The county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to award $625,000 to the survivors of a man who died at the county’s Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in 1995.
Los Angeles County lawyers concluded that Charles Hamilton, 56, died after a first-year surgical intern inserted a catheter into his chest in a “high-risk” and unnecessary procedure as he was recovering from injuries suffered in a car accident.
The settlement was delayed for almost eight months because King/Drew officials had not completed an adequate review of the case to see what went wrong, and then did not submit a formal corrective action plan to the Department of Health Services, as required, so the supervisors could approve the settlement, according to medical and legal documents.
The settlement was expedited after top county health officials ordered the South Los Angeles trauma center and public hospital to submit the corrective action plan, and after a judge set a trial date last month to put pressure on the county.
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