Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Judge rules on several motions in case against W-B General physician.
WILKES-BARRE – A Luzerne County judge has denied several motions in a case against a Wilkes-Barre General Hospital doctor who is accused of failing to tell a patient she had cancer and then altering her medical record to reflect that he had told her.
Among the motions Judge David Lupas denied on Monday was a request that the court throw out claims of recklessness and a demand for punitive damages.
Lupas, however, granted a motion to amend the lawsuit to include another count of defamation. A motion to throw out “impertinent and scandalous matter” from an amended complaint also was overruled, according to court papers.
Margaret Radginski of Hunlock Creek filed a lawsuit against Dr. Feroz Sheikh and others, claiming Sheikh failed to tell her she had cancer. After the suit was filed, attorneys said, Sheikh altered Radginski’s records to make it look as though he did tell her about the cancer.
Radginski’s attorney, Mike Foley, Scranton, said he will continue to push ahead and hopes to get a trial date.
Sheikh’s attorneys, Patrick Carey and Douglas Yazinski, filed court papers earlier this year responding to the suit, stating it is about “care and treatment rendered” to Radginski from 2005 to September 2007 relating to her cancer.
Sheikh’s attorneys previously said the claim the doctor altered the woman’s medical record should be removed because the allegation doesn’t have anything to do with the underlying issue of the suit. It’s not relevant, they said, because the alleged alteration occurred after September 2007, and Sheikh was not treating Radginski after that.
The suit, filed against Sheikh, Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, its owner, Wyoming Valley Health Care System, and Surgical Specialists of Wyoming Valley, said Radginski was 61 when she had surgery in November 2005 for diverticulitis, a colon problem.
Additional tests were ordered on a mass that was found on the colon, which was later determined to be cancer, the suit alleges.
Sheikh went on vacation shortly after Radginski’s surgery and was not advised of the test results because of communication problems between Sheikh and other hospital workers, according to court papers.
In August 2007, the suit said, Radginski’s cancer progressed, and that’s when she was told of her diagnosis. She had surgery for the cancer in September, when she was 63.
Before the lawsuit was filed, Radginski’s medical chart was provided to her by the hospital in November 2007, and contained a note written on Nov. 11, 2005, by Sheikh that said Radginski was “doing well” and discharged from the hospital.
The suit was then filed in December, and Radginski obtained another copy of the chart. The same note was changed to indicate Sheikh told Radginski of the cancer, the suit said.