A 39-year-old mother of two went to a hospital in McCreary County, Kentucky to have laparoscopic bypass surgery, an operation that was supposed to aid her in losing weight. After the procedure, she suffered a fever and a rapid heartbeat, and she is said to have felt significant pain. She was later transferred to the ICU, where the surgeon was accused of belatedly noticing the clear symptoms of an infection. He did not see the infection and the abdominal leak that had caused it until he performed an additional, exploratory surgery. The mother soon had to have a breathing vent. The surgeon soon discharged her, still feverish and with an overly high blood pressure that would not respond to medication. She died five days later.

The autopsy discovered that there was green pus around her liver and in her pelvis. Her intestines were also severely injured. That was back in January of 2010. Her husband filed a medical malpractice that year, and it's taken four years for the jury to come to the unanimous decision last week of faulting both the hospital and surgeon with malpractice.

The surgeon stood accused of unreasonable incompetence, and one of the allegations leveled at the hospital was that they negligently allowed that surgeon to still practice, despite prior complications other patients of his had suffered. The husband said that the hospital failed to provide a timely inspection of the surgeon's complication rate, which should have led the hospital to shutter the bariatric surgery program. According to court documents, that surgeon had a 28 percent to 31 percent complication rate in that type of surgery, and in fact, three other patients had died from complications of that surgery.

This surgeon and hospital currently face a few unresolved lawsuits, alleging that patients were severely injured from bariatric surgeries (weight loss surgeries) that all took place in 2009. These are warning signs that the husband said were never made known to him and his late wife. He blamed the hospital for touting the values of the bariatric surgery program, incorrectly marketing it as much safer than it really was.

The jury came to its unanimous verdict on Tuesday, March 25, siding with the family. The verdict declared that the hospital staff had provided substandard care, and that the surgeon was negligent in his actions. The hospital was said to be 60 percent to blame, with the surgeon taking 40 percent of the liability. For this malpractice, the jury recommended a judgment of $10,658,265 to be awarded to the family, a judgment that a judge will have to sign off on.

While there is no way that a fair case result can truly compensate a family for such a tragedy, a medical malpractice claim can hold parties accountable (that surgeon no longer practices in that state), and it can hopefully protect others from having to suffer that same negligence in the future. Learn how you may be able to seek justice on you or a loved one's behalf when you contact a medical malpractice lawyer today!