A large malpractice award against Northern Light Health this week is the latest in a string of jury rulings against the northern and eastern Maine healthcare giant this year, totaling more than $47 million.<\/p>\n
In this week\u2019s case, a couple was awarded $17 million<\/a>\u00a0after a Northern Light Health surgeon removed the woman\u2019s bladder instead of an ovarian cyst.<\/p>\n Northern Light Health was found by juries to be at fault three other times this year in negligence lawsuits against the Brewer-based health system.<\/p>\n Jury trials for such cases are rare, and this recent run has resulted in large sums awarded to the plaintiffs, ranging from three-quarters of a million dollars to $23.1 million.<\/p>\n The smallest of the four awards came in February when a jury awarded $750,000 to a 71-year-old woman who suffered permanent harm after the surgeon performing her hip-replacement surgery at an Ellsworth hospital failed to read an X-ray, missing a routine complication, and later sawed a centimeter-long gap in her femur<\/a>.<\/p>\n In April, a jury awarded a 41-year-old man $6.5 million after Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center failed to operate on an emergency spinal injury for nearly 24 hours in August 2021. The delay left the man partially paralyzed<\/a>, able to walk only short distances with the help of braces on both legs, and no longer able to control his bladder and bowels.<\/p>\n