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- Posted: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:38:03 +0000
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Joan Rivers' doctors were so busy taking cell phone pictures of their famous patient that they missed the moment her vital signs plummeted — and they ignored pleas from the anesthesiologist to halt the procedure, according to a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed Monday by the comic’s daughter.
For 17 minutes, while her blood pressure, pulse, heart rate and oxygen levels dropped — precipitously — the doctors in the room failed to cut into her trachea to restore the oxygen flow to her brain, court papers said.
Melissa Rivers, 47, filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court against the clinic and the two doctors and three anesthesiologists who treated her 81-year-old mother last August, charging that their negligence triggered a coma that ended in her mother's death.
Rivers, 81, died of brain damage caused by a loss of oxygen during a routine outpatient procedure where doctors were supposed to do an endoscopy and examine her esophagus for possible causes of voice changes.
The doctors did those procedures but they also did an unauthorized biopsy on her vocal chords that resulted in a laryngospasm examination of her vocal chords and windpipe that resulted in a laryngospasm, the suit said.
With the spasm, her throat seized up and deprived her brain of oxygen. She also couldn’t expel carbon dioxide from her lungs and the result was a heart attack and irreversible brain damage, the lawsuit alleged.
During the procedures, doctors ignored the concerns of the acting anesthesiologist, who urged caution after noticing “incredible edema,” or swelling, in Rivers’ throat.
Anesthesiologist Renuka Bankulla suggested taking an internal picture to gauge how bad the swelling was, the suit said.
“You’re being paranoid ... You’re such a curious cat. You always need to see everything,” the lead doctor, Lawrence B. Cohen, told her, before proceeding over her objections, the suit said.
Rivers left the clinic in a coma and died seven days later. Her only child, Melissa, 47, filed the lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday, naming The lawsuit named the clinic, Yorkville Endoscopy, Frontier Healthcare, the company with partial ownership of the clinic that was responsible for credentialing the doctors, Rivers’ personal physician Gail Korovin and anesthesiologists Renuka Bankulla, Robert Koniuta and Suzanne Scarola as defendants.
Instead of stopping the laryngoscopy midway to stabilize her when her vital signs showed signs of distress, the doctors continued with the procedure and she went into cardiac arrest.
The complaint alleges that for 20 minutes while doctors tried to revive her, nobody performed a tracheotomy to open up her airways
“Had the doctors acted as physicians for Joan Rivers instead of groupies, Joan Rivers would have been doing ‘Fashion Police’ last week,” said one family lawyer Jeffrey Bloom, of Gair, Gair, Conason, Steigman McKauf, Bloom and Rabinowitz.
Rivers left the clinic in a coma and died seven days later.
Rivers' only child, Melissa, 47, filed the lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday, naming five doctors and the clinic as defendants.
Melissa Rivers said she filed the lawsuit because of her “unwavering belief” that no family should ever have to go through what "my mother, Cooper and I have been through."
“The level of medical mismanagement, incompetency, disrespect and outrageous behavior is shocking and frankly almost incomprehensible.
“Not only did my mother deserve better, every patient deserves better,” she said.
“Melissa wants to make sure that this never happens to anyone else. Ambulatory care centers need to have the same oversight that hospitals have to ensure that patients are treated properly,” said Ben Rubinowitz, one of the family’s lawyers.
Yorkville Endoscopy, the East 93rd Street clinic where Rivers was seen as an outpatient, came under heavy fire from state and federal health officials after the August 28 operation.
Investigators discovered that the clinic's medical director, Lawrence Cohen, allowed River's private doctor, celebrity ear-nose-and-throat specialist Gwen Korovin, to do the unauthorized biopsy windpipe examination even though Korovin wasn't cleared to work at the clinic.
Bankulla objected when Korovin entered the room for the procedure, but was overruled by Cohen.
Korovin started things off by trying to insert a scope into the sedated Rivers’ nose to take pictures of her throat, but pulled out, saying she couldn’t get a clear view, the suit said.
Cohen then proceeded with the routine endoscopy — at which point Rivers’ blood pressure, heart rate, pulse level and oxygen level all dropped. The carbon dioxide levels in her blood went up, the suit said.
At some point between 9:26 a.m. and 9:47 a.m., Korovin said she was going in again, according to court papers.
NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpi
ANTHONY DELMUNDO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
NYPD police officers walk into Yorkville Endoscopy, where comedian Joan Rivers underwent an unauthorized examination that resulted in her death.
That’s when Bankulla tried again to intervene — citing Rivers’ badly swollen throat — and was dismissed.
As Korovin began inserting the scope for a second time, Cohen started taking cell phone pictures of the celebrity doctor at work, the lawsuit alleged.
Rivers’ oxygen levels and heart rate sank — signs of a likely airway obstruction, the suit said.
As the team realized the seriousness of the problem, they called a Code Blue — but never administered a muscle relaxant that might have unlocked the muscle in Rivers’ throat, nor did they cut into her windpipe to let air into her body.
Instead, Cohen did frantic chest compressions; Bankulla tried but failed to intubate Rivers, and two other anesthesiologists, Koniuta and Scarola, rushed in to help with the hand pump to push air into her lungs.
They worked for 17 minutes before Bankulla called for a tracheotomy kit — but it was never used.
When Bankulla looked for Korovin, who could have done the emergency tracheotomy, she was nowhere to be found. Rivers’ doctor had left the room, the suit said.
By the time EMS got Rivers to Mt. Sinai Hospital, she had already suffered irreversible brain damage, the suit said.
They also learned that he took a picture of Korovin with her heavily anesthetized patient in the operating room and that the anesthesiologist, Renuka Reddy Bankulla, appeared to have given Rivers more Propofol as her vital signs were slipping.
Propofol is a sedative known for having contributed to the death of entertainer Michael Jackson and not used when patients are already having trouble breathing.
Bankulla reportedly told investigators that the medical charts were wrong and the dosage numbers were double what she actually gave Rivers at the start of the procedure.
Cohen was discharged by the clinic almost immediately. Despite its best efforts to satisfy investigators that clinic staff had cleaned up their act, Yorkville is in danger of losing its federal accreditation in March. That would bar it from charging Medicare or Medicaid for procedures on any of its patients.
Rivers performed at a Manhattan comedy club the night before she slipped into a coma.
Melissa Rivers hired the high-powered Manhattan law firm of Gair, Gair, Conanson, Stiegman, Mackauf, Bloom and Rubinowitz last October, about two months after her mother’s death.
The city medical examiner ruled that same month that Rivers’ oxygen supply was cut off as the 81-year-old comedian underwent what was slated as a routine endoscopy.
Rivers went into cardiac and respiratory arrest, and died at Mount Sinai Medical Center on Sept. 4. Rumors and rumblings of a lawsuit in her sudden, shocking death began almost immediately after her funeral.
The Daily News reported that Rivers additionally underwent an unplanned vocal cord biopsy performed by her private doctor at the Upper East Side clinic.
Melissa Rivers, as executor of her mother’s estate, filed the lawsuit. She was the only child of the caustic comedian, and became her mother’s TV collaborator on a number of projects.
Dr. Lawrence Cohen was ousted from his job as medical director at Yorkville Endoscopy just eight days after Rivers died.
The Brooklyn-born comic underwent the procedure because her voice had recently turned raspy, and Rivers was worried about the cause.
Former chief New York Medical Examiner Michael Baden said Rivers’ death came as a result of a “therapeutic misadventure.”
He also predicted the current medical examiner’s report on what happened opened the door to “a very serious lawsuit.”
For 17 minutes, while her blood pressure, pulse, heart rate and oxygen levels dropped — precipitously — the doctors in the room failed to cut into her trachea to restore the oxygen flow to her brain, court papers said.
Melissa Rivers, 47, filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court against the clinic and the two doctors and three anesthesiologists who treated her 81-year-old mother last August, charging that their negligence triggered a coma that ended in her mother's death.
Rivers, 81, died of brain damage caused by a loss of oxygen during a routine outpatient procedure where doctors were supposed to do an endoscopy and examine her esophagus for possible causes of voice changes.
The doctors did those procedures but they also did an unauthorized biopsy on her vocal chords that resulted in a laryngospasm examination of her vocal chords and windpipe that resulted in a laryngospasm, the suit said.
With the spasm, her throat seized up and deprived her brain of oxygen. She also couldn’t expel carbon dioxide from her lungs and the result was a heart attack and irreversible brain damage, the lawsuit alleged.
During the procedures, doctors ignored the concerns of the acting anesthesiologist, who urged caution after noticing “incredible edema,” or swelling, in Rivers’ throat.
Anesthesiologist Renuka Bankulla suggested taking an internal picture to gauge how bad the swelling was, the suit said.
“You’re being paranoid ... You’re such a curious cat. You always need to see everything,” the lead doctor, Lawrence B. Cohen, told her, before proceeding over her objections, the suit said.
Rivers left the clinic in a coma and died seven days later. Her only child, Melissa, 47, filed the lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday, naming The lawsuit named the clinic, Yorkville Endoscopy, Frontier Healthcare, the company with partial ownership of the clinic that was responsible for credentialing the doctors, Rivers’ personal physician Gail Korovin and anesthesiologists Renuka Bankulla, Robert Koniuta and Suzanne Scarola as defendants.
Instead of stopping the laryngoscopy midway to stabilize her when her vital signs showed signs of distress, the doctors continued with the procedure and she went into cardiac arrest.
The complaint alleges that for 20 minutes while doctors tried to revive her, nobody performed a tracheotomy to open up her airways
“Had the doctors acted as physicians for Joan Rivers instead of groupies, Joan Rivers would have been doing ‘Fashion Police’ last week,” said one family lawyer Jeffrey Bloom, of Gair, Gair, Conason, Steigman McKauf, Bloom and Rabinowitz.
Rivers left the clinic in a coma and died seven days later.
Rivers' only child, Melissa, 47, filed the lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday, naming five doctors and the clinic as defendants.
Melissa Rivers said she filed the lawsuit because of her “unwavering belief” that no family should ever have to go through what "my mother, Cooper and I have been through."
“The level of medical mismanagement, incompetency, disrespect and outrageous behavior is shocking and frankly almost incomprehensible.
“Not only did my mother deserve better, every patient deserves better,” she said.
“Melissa wants to make sure that this never happens to anyone else. Ambulatory care centers need to have the same oversight that hospitals have to ensure that patients are treated properly,” said Ben Rubinowitz, one of the family’s lawyers.
Yorkville Endoscopy, the East 93rd Street clinic where Rivers was seen as an outpatient, came under heavy fire from state and federal health officials after the August 28 operation.
Investigators discovered that the clinic's medical director, Lawrence Cohen, allowed River's private doctor, celebrity ear-nose-and-throat specialist Gwen Korovin, to do the unauthorized biopsy windpipe examination even though Korovin wasn't cleared to work at the clinic.
Bankulla objected when Korovin entered the room for the procedure, but was overruled by Cohen.
Korovin started things off by trying to insert a scope into the sedated Rivers’ nose to take pictures of her throat, but pulled out, saying she couldn’t get a clear view, the suit said.
Cohen then proceeded with the routine endoscopy — at which point Rivers’ blood pressure, heart rate, pulse level and oxygen level all dropped. The carbon dioxide levels in her blood went up, the suit said.
At some point between 9:26 a.m. and 9:47 a.m., Korovin said she was going in again, according to court papers.
NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpi
ANTHONY DELMUNDO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
NYPD police officers walk into Yorkville Endoscopy, where comedian Joan Rivers underwent an unauthorized examination that resulted in her death.
That’s when Bankulla tried again to intervene — citing Rivers’ badly swollen throat — and was dismissed.
As Korovin began inserting the scope for a second time, Cohen started taking cell phone pictures of the celebrity doctor at work, the lawsuit alleged.
Rivers’ oxygen levels and heart rate sank — signs of a likely airway obstruction, the suit said.
As the team realized the seriousness of the problem, they called a Code Blue — but never administered a muscle relaxant that might have unlocked the muscle in Rivers’ throat, nor did they cut into her windpipe to let air into her body.
Instead, Cohen did frantic chest compressions; Bankulla tried but failed to intubate Rivers, and two other anesthesiologists, Koniuta and Scarola, rushed in to help with the hand pump to push air into her lungs.
They worked for 17 minutes before Bankulla called for a tracheotomy kit — but it was never used.
When Bankulla looked for Korovin, who could have done the emergency tracheotomy, she was nowhere to be found. Rivers’ doctor had left the room, the suit said.
By the time EMS got Rivers to Mt. Sinai Hospital, she had already suffered irreversible brain damage, the suit said.
They also learned that he took a picture of Korovin with her heavily anesthetized patient in the operating room and that the anesthesiologist, Renuka Reddy Bankulla, appeared to have given Rivers more Propofol as her vital signs were slipping.
Propofol is a sedative known for having contributed to the death of entertainer Michael Jackson and not used when patients are already having trouble breathing.
Bankulla reportedly told investigators that the medical charts were wrong and the dosage numbers were double what she actually gave Rivers at the start of the procedure.
Cohen was discharged by the clinic almost immediately. Despite its best efforts to satisfy investigators that clinic staff had cleaned up their act, Yorkville is in danger of losing its federal accreditation in March. That would bar it from charging Medicare or Medicaid for procedures on any of its patients.
Rivers performed at a Manhattan comedy club the night before she slipped into a coma.
Melissa Rivers hired the high-powered Manhattan law firm of Gair, Gair, Conanson, Stiegman, Mackauf, Bloom and Rubinowitz last October, about two months after her mother’s death.
The city medical examiner ruled that same month that Rivers’ oxygen supply was cut off as the 81-year-old comedian underwent what was slated as a routine endoscopy.
Rivers went into cardiac and respiratory arrest, and died at Mount Sinai Medical Center on Sept. 4. Rumors and rumblings of a lawsuit in her sudden, shocking death began almost immediately after her funeral.
The Daily News reported that Rivers additionally underwent an unplanned vocal cord biopsy performed by her private doctor at the Upper East Side clinic.
Melissa Rivers, as executor of her mother’s estate, filed the lawsuit. She was the only child of the caustic comedian, and became her mother’s TV collaborator on a number of projects.
Dr. Lawrence Cohen was ousted from his job as medical director at Yorkville Endoscopy just eight days after Rivers died.
The Brooklyn-born comic underwent the procedure because her voice had recently turned raspy, and Rivers was worried about the cause.
Former chief New York Medical Examiner Michael Baden said Rivers’ death came as a result of a “therapeutic misadventure.”
He also predicted the current medical examiner’s report on what happened opened the door to “a very serious lawsuit.”
selfies?
