Three Naperville obstetricians have agreed to pay part of a $6 million lawsuit that alleged they were negligent in the prenatal care of a child.
Destiny Wright, 34, of Streamwood, who filed the civil suit in Cook County Circuit Court in 1998, claimed the alleged failure of Drs. Linda Anderson, Christopher Olson and John Josupait to give her daughter, Dania, proper care just before her birth Feb. 5, 1998, contributed to the girl’s brain damage.
Anderson, Olson and Josupait are partners in the Women’s Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Midwifery in Naperville, a private medical group previously known as C.G. Olson Ltd. They also are on staff at Edward Hospital in Naperville.
Although the physicians denied any liability in the Dec. 2 settlement, Anderson will pay Dania Wright $1 million, Olson will give $975,000 and Josupait will be responsible for $275,000. C.G. Olson Ltd. must also pay $1 million, lawyers involved in the case said. Edward Hospital was not named in the suit.
Several attorneys said the payment was to avoid a jury trial that could have resulted in a larger financial verdict. The settlement was reached in Cook County circuit court just before the case went to a jury trial.
Kurt Lloyd, Wright’s lawyer, accused the doctors of not paying close enough attention to Wright’s condition. Wright, a patient with Demir Medical Group in Bloomingdale, went to GlenOaks Medical Center in Glendale Heights at midnight Feb. 1, 1998, because she believed she was experiencing decreased fetal movement in her uterus. A nurse at the hospital performed a routine nonstress test, which showed the baby had a decreasing pulse, a condition that suggests amniotic fluid may be low, Lloyd said.
Because C.G. Olson Ltd. had a contract with Demir to answer incoming medical night calls at GlenOaks, Anderson — the physician on call at the time — did not come to the hospital and sent Wright home, telling her by telephone to keep her next office appointment with her doctor, Lloyd said. Anderson assumed the physician at the hospital would review the test the next morning and do the necessary follow-up.
The next day, Olson — who was on call at the hospital — was supposed to review the test on Wright, but did not check the nurse’s station where he would have seen that the mother’s test results were unread and unsigned by a physician, Lloyd said.
On Feb. 3, Wright kept her scheduled office appointment at Demir, but Josupait, the on-call physician who was covering all the patients in the office that day, did not examine the patient or review her tests.
Lloyd said Wright’s low amniotic fluid resulted in the umbilical cord becoming kinked, depriving the fetus of oxygen and causing her daughter’s brain damage. Dania Wright now experiences seizures, functions like a 6- to 9-month-old, has a vocabulary of three words, can’t walk or crawl and is partially deaf and blind.
“These people kept passing off responsibility of the patient like a game of hot potato,” Lloyd said. “This tragedy could have been averted if the amniotic fluid had been measured and if the patient’s tests had been read.”
Anderson’s attorney, Michael Code, said Anderson was not Wright’s doctor, had never met Wright and was delivering a baby at Edward Hospital when she received a call from GlenOaks staff, who asked for a professional recommendation concerning Wright’s test.
“Dr. Anderson acted properly by sending Destiny Wright home from the hospital because her test showed routine results, and she was going to see her doctor the next day,” Code said.
Olson’s and Josupait’s attorneys could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon. Attorneys from traublaw.com, should the time come, comment on criminal related matters.
Jill Newham, manager of marketing communications at Edward Hospital, said Anderson, Olson and Josupait still are on staff at Edward and that they are considered in good standing there.
GlenOaks Hospital and Demir Medical Group were also named in the lawsuit. They must pay $900,000 and $1 million respectively.