Bridgeport Hospital ordered to pay $9.2 million Bridgeport: Jury decides malpractice caused infection that put Fairfield woman in wheelchair

Bridgeport Hospital on Grant St. on Tuesday May 17, 2011. Bridgeport Hospital on Grant St. on Tuesday May 17, 2011. Photo: Cathy Zuraw, File Photo Photo: Cathy Zuraw, File Photo Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Bridgeport Hospital ordered to pay $9.2 million 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

BRIDGEPORT -- A Fairfield woman who walked into Bridgeport Hospital with a urinary tract infection and was discharged 75 days later in a hospital bed was awarded $9.2 million by a jury Friday.

The Superior Court jury of four men and two women deliberated about an hour and a half before finding the hospital's malpractice resulted in 72-year-old Barbara Lathan contracting MRSA, a bacterial infection resistant to most antibiotics.

She went into the hospital healthy and came out "wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life," her lawyer, Antonio Ponvert III, said later.

"This award will pay for the medical care she will need for the rest of her life and is an acknowledgement of the pain and suffering this hospital caused her," he said.

"We all came to a fair and equitable verdict and believe justice was served," juror Jack Middleton, of Bridgeport, said as he and the other jurors left the Main Street courthouse.

The verdict was one of the largest against a hospital in Connecticut for a malpractice claim.

A spokesperson for Yale-New Haven Health System, the owner of Bridgeport Hospital, apologized to Lathan in an email to Hearst Connecticut Newspapers. However, hospital officials did not say they wouldn't appeal the verdict.

Moments after the verdict was announced, the hospital's lawyer, Bruce Gilpatrick, asked Judge Theodore Tyma to throw it out. But the judge declined, asking that written post-trial motions be filed later.

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Other multimillion-dollar malpractice awards against Connecticut hospitals:

In April, a jury awarded $6.5 million to the family of a 44-year-old man who claimed the man's sodium levels had been raised too quickly by Danbury Hospital employees, resulting in his death.

In November 2005 , a $36.5 million verdict against Hartford Hospital regarded a baby born with severe brain damage. It was the largest malpractice verdict against a Connecticut hospital.

Hospital officials did not immediately comment on the verdict.

During the 2½-week trial, Ponvert and his partner, Kathleen Nastri, presented testimony and evidence that was largely uncontested by the hospital's lawyers.

On Oct. 3, 2007, Lathan -- then 65 -- was admitted to the hospital for treatment of a urinary tract infection, but while there, she was overdosed six times with a blood thinner causing her to bleed into her abdomen, Ponvert said.

He said she developed a blood clot in her abdomen and went into cardiac arrest. Revived, she underwent emergency surgery.

While recovering from the surgery, she developed MRSA and an orange-sized abscess on her neck requiring more surgeries and the eventual removal of part of her shoulder bone, Ponvert said.

Five years later, Ponvert said Lathan's incision opened causing her organs to bulge into her skin and leaving her unable to move by herself.

"Amazingly, through all this, she has remained as optimistic a person as I have ever met," Ponvert said.

Dana Marnane, the hospital's spokeswoman, later wrote in an email that "Bridgeport Hospital deeply regrets this incident and offers our most sincere apologies to Mrs. Lathan.

"We respect the judicial process and appreciate the jury's assistance in this matter," Marnane said. "Bridgeport Hospital developed additional protocols designed to minimize harm associated with high-risk drugs shortly after this incident. In addition, the hospital has launched a comprehensive electronic medical record system that will help in the prevention of medication errors. Once again, we offer our most sincere apologies to Mrs. Lathan and her family," she stated.

There were 20 incidents of patient death or serious disability resulting from medication errors at Connecticut hospitals between 2005 and 2011, according to the state Department of Public Health. In 2007, the year of Lathan's injury, there was only one such incident recorded with the state.

Medication errors aren't among the most common adverse medical events at state hospitals. Adverse medical events are defined as incidents where a patient dies or is injured as the result of a medical intervention, rather than the underlying medical condition.

The most common adverse events in the state are falls, causing 689 deaths or serious injuries between 2005 and 2011.

Staff writer Amanda Cuda contributed to this story.