“Penn Highlands Mon Valley is a Primary Stroke Center, offering expert stroke care and stroke management in southwestern Pennsylvania. While all of Penn Highlands ERs and hospitals are skilled at assessing and treating stroke patients, Penn Highlands Mon Valley’s advanced stroke certification reflects its specialized stroke program, integration of patient involvement in their care, use of best care standards, and outcomes tracking.” That’s what the hospital’s website states.
So why did the hospital fail to timely diagnose and treat a patient’s stroke for 19 hours, resulting in a Pennsylvania medical malpractice jury returning its verdict in early February 2025 in the amount of $856,000 for the patient’s pain and suffering, mental anguish, embarrassment, and humiliation?
The 64-year-old patient was driving his motor vehicle on February 28, 2021 when he felt the sudden onset of left-sided weakness and numbness and he was dizzy. He pulled his vehicle to the side of the road and called 911. EMS responded and transported him to the defendant hospital, which was nearest stroke center. According to the man’s medical malpractice lawyer, “Once he gets to the hospital, that’s ultimately where the providers who he trusted with his life and his health didn’t give him the same care and attention that a stroke center should. At the time of Mr. Burrows’s care, [the hospital] didn’t have an on-site neurologist, so they had to call out to get a neurologist involved. The MRI department at Mon Valley Hospital was closed on Sundays. An MRI is for a definitive diagnosis of the stroke, and an MRI wasn’t done until the next day. He didn’t get any stroke treatment for 19 hours. Unfortunately, the stroke was not diagnosed timely and he didn’t really receive treatment for that stroke until it was too late and permanent neurological damage had resulted.”
“An MRI shouldn’t have been what prevented him from getting the treatment that he needed. The symptoms that he came in with should have alerted them to a stroke diagnosis. The MRI could have been used to definitively diagnose it, but yeah, it was closed on Sundays. They weren’t concerned enough to transfer him out or bring somebody in for an MRI, so they just scheduled him the next day.”
“The whole left side of his body has become extremely weak. He walks with a significant limp. He uses a cane to get around. He sleeps in a hospital bed. His vocal cord has been paralyzed, so his voice has been affected severely.”
If you or a loved one suffered harm due to hospital negligence in Pennsylvania or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find a Pennsylvania medical malpractice attorney or a medical malpractice attorney in your state who may investigate your hospital medical negligence claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a hospital medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
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