A Stark County jury awarded $4.25 million to a widower who sued a former Mercy Medical Center doctor for medical negligence and wrongful death.
According to her husband's attorney, a 43-year-old Dennison resident died in November 2018 after the doctor cut the inner wall of her artery during a catheter procedure to check for heart disease. Another doctor attempted to open the resulting artery blockage but failed as the victim was not placed on a heart support pump within an hour.
The lawsuit was filed against the doctor, several other doctors, Mercy Medical Center, and Stark Medical Specialties in November 2019. According to Stark County court records, Mercy and the other doctors were later dismissed from the case. The trial took place in September, and the jury of six men and one woman deliberated for over three hours before ruling in favor of the plaintiff.
Mercy Medical Center was absorbed into the Cleveland Clinic health system in 2021, and its name was changed to Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital. One of the issues with how the case was handled, according to the plaintiff's attorney, was that the doctor decided who to call for help and there was no set procedure to follow.
Mercy hospital practises, according to the attorney, should have improved under Cleveland Clinic leadership. He said the lawsuit did not affect the defendant doctor's medical license. According to a spokesman for Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital, the case predated the clinic's ownership of Mercy, and the clinic is not involved in the lawsuit.
