Letter to the Editor

Military medical negligence

Saturday, November 14, 2015

To the Editor:

I read with great dismay the letter to the editor on 10/26/15 titled Military medics don't need civilian training. I am in total disagreement with the quality of medical care provided by military medics. The DAR ran a front page story on 3/30/2014 titled "Mom wants answers to why son died." For those unfamiliar with the story of my son Master Sergeant William Cornett, he died seeking emergency medical care exactly as instructed on his post-op tonsillectomy discharge instruction sheet. The surgery was done by a military doctor on 9/19/13. On 9/22/13, he went to the hospital Urgent Care Clinic with complaints of spitting up bright red blood, fever of 101.5 twice and night sweats. The person tending to patients looked at his throat, called a specialist by phone, and then sent him home. They did not provide him with any care. When he returned later that evening, he was taken to surgery alert and oriented. They did not place a cardiac monitor on him and they allowed someone to "practice" placing an airway instead of immediately performing an emergency airway. My only son died as a direct result of the inability of the military medical personnel to recognize post op complications and perform evidence-based practice care.

Unfortunately, this has become the accepted normal of the Department of Defense (DOD). They continually abuse the casualty provisions to justify the serious medical disabilities and deaths of our service members during non-combat. I recently wrote the Secretary of Defense Ash Carter regarding this matter. I did receive a response from a Colonel in response to my letter to the Secretary of Defense. The Colonel finally answered my question. Would my son's outcome have been acceptable if it had been his family member instead of mine? His response was an unequivocal no. He also apologized for the inability of the medical personnel to properly identify the race of my son. I recently was contacted by another mother whose son was at the same base as my son. She informed me that "your son's doctor tried 3 times to place an emergency airway into my son before he lost all oxygen to the brain." So her son died several months before my son. There were 3 investigations into the death of my son including Joint Commission, Standards of Care Review, and a Surgeon General Incident Investigative team was flown over. My son's death was ruled a sentinel even by the Joint Commission. I ran my son's providers name through the NPI registry and the person running the Urgent Care was a student practicing independently. The "specialist" that he called by phone and is deemed competent to perform surgery by the military is licensed as a General Practice Dentist. Even after the deaths of 2 service members and 3 investigations, the same providers continue to practice medicine on the base.

I would urge your readers to read the New York Times article by Sharon LaFraniere and Andrew Lehran, In Military Care, A Pattern of Errors but Not Scrutiny. This article provides a glimpse to

the decades old practice of abusing casualty provisions to justify medical care by unqualified military personnel during non-combat. The article notes that there was 239 never events in military medicine from 2011-2013. Casualty pay for each of these events are $500,000 and do not include the cost for investigations into these events or monthly survivor benefits. The military recently held a conference in regards to this matter and I was asked to send pictures to be shown at the conference. The conference was to showcase the seriousness of the issue of military medical negligence and I was informed that several cases were presented. The outcome of the conference is the military is planning to use aviation standards to decrease the number of medical disabilities and deaths of our troops over the next 5-10 years. What this really means is that the military is willing to allow another 400-800 deaths and medical disabilities over the next 5-10 year while they attempt to "change the culture." This figure is conservative since the military acknowledged in the same article that they don't know the harm rate. I resent the abuse of taxpayer money to pay for repeat investigations into these types of events when the military fails to address the root cause of the issue.

I was personally told numerous times by military medics how much better off that I was going to be when my son died and the casualty provisions kicked in. They told me this while I watched my son died and they seemed really proud of the casualty provisions. I have nothing but the highest respect for those that sign to defend our cherished freedoms. It is not my expectation that any one of them die or become medically disabled at the hands of unqualified military medical personnel during non-combat. To that end, I am working diligently to ensure that Military Medical Negligence is stopped and those that fail to provide the standards of care are truly held accountable as defined in the DOD Instructions: 5505.10. There will be more information forthcoming in the future in regards to Military Medical Negligence. I would sincerely appreciate if you would print this letter and have your readers to make an informed decision regarding this matter.

Sincerely,

Phyllis Hardin

MSN B.C.

Poplar Bluff, Mo.

International Published Author: Implications of Resource Constraint on Patient Satisfaction