Judge rejects claim of doctors’ indifference  

The patient, a former inmate in the state prison system, filed suit against the University of Massachusetts Correctional Health program, the Department of Corrections and his physicians for constitutional violations.

He contended that his contracted medical providers were deliberately indifferent to his ongoing pain during a one-year delay in hip replacement surgery.

The patient was scheduled to undergo a right hip replacement in August 2005, but his medical providers determined that he suffered from MRSA, precluding surgery.

On Feb. 23, 2006, a doctor at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital determined that the plaintiff was free of MRSA. A year later, he underwent right hip replacement surgery, followed by physical therapy.

The patient then began to complain about left hip pain. Medical personnel gave him pain medications and his doctors determined in June 2007 that he required a left hip replacement. He underwent hip surgery in October at the same hospital, followed by physical therapy.

The Superior Court found that none of the defendants could be sued for “cruel and unusual punishment.”

It said that during the one-year period from the plaintiff’s clearance from MRSA and his right hip replacement surgery, “the defendants took extraordinary steps to help the plaintiff minimize his pain, and attempted to remedy his serious medical condition, including adjustments in pain medication, diagnostic tests, a medical order to sleep on the bottom bunk, use of security doors to decrease the distance he would have to walk in the prison, room reassignments, stand-up lockers, an egg-crate mattress, crutches, canes, and knee sleeves.”

The court found that the patient was allowed to carry certain pain medications to take them as needed. It ruled that as a matter of law, these actions defeated the plaintiff’s claim of deliberate indifference in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Type of action: Medical malpractice

Injuries alleged: Eighth Amendment violation

Date: December 2009

Submitted by: James A. Bello and Anthony E. Abeln, Morrison Mahoney, Boston