ABOVE: Patient advocates working to reform medical malpractice laws meet with Sen. Feinstein's staff.
Medical negligence is a silent epidemic that claims hundreds of thousands of Americans’ lives annually. Consumer Watchdog fights for greater doctor discipline and physician accountability through the regulatory and legal system. We work with patients injured by medical malpractice and their families to tell their stories, improve patient safety and create legal deterrence to medical negligence.
Consumer Watchdog has long opposed and sought to rollback California’s “one size fits all” cap on what injured patients can recover from juries and to stop the spread of this cruel cap on courts across the nation. The medical insurance complex defeated a California ballot initiative in 2014, Prop 46, that would have lifted the cap and instituted drug testing of doctors. A third provision of the ballot measure, the requirement that doctors check an existing database of prescriptions before prescribing narcotics for the first time, was signed into law by Governor Brown in 2016 and in effect.
Two-year-old Malyia Jeffers had a fever that kept rising, and unexpected bruises appeared on her cheek. Her parents rushed her to a Sacramento emergency room, where they waited for hours even though her condition continued to worsen. Her parents repeatedly begged to get her medical attention were ignored until her father forced his way into the medical department and demanded help. Five hours after she arrived, Malyia was finally seen by a physician, who saw the seriousness of her situation and had her flown to Stanford hospital. But by then the damage was done.
SANTA MONICA, CA: The California Supreme Court said today it will review the constitutionality of the state’s arbitrary 39-year-old damages cap of $250,000 in medical malpractice cases in Hughes v. Pham. Last week, Consumer Watchdog wrote an amicus letter asking the Court to review Hughes and overturn this decades-old injustice.
SANTA MONICA, CA: Consumer Watchdog has joined the plaintiffs in Hughes v. Pham in asking that the California Supreme Court review the constitutionality of the state’s arbitrary 39-year-old damages cap of $250,000 in medical malpractice cases.
