Mother of Nine Sues Massachusetts Hospital After Unauthorized Sterilization

Dorian Gray

Hypocrisy Detector
Dorian Gray
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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mother-sterilized-lawsuit-claims/story?id=9474471

A little of the story:
A Massachusetts mother with nine children who had asked a hospital for post-delivery birth control was sterilized instead without her consent, according to a lawsuit against the Springfield hospital and several doctors and nurses.

Tessa Savicki, 35, claimed that doctors at Baystate Medical Center had agreed to insert an intrauterine device, or IUD, that she brought to the operating room, but instead performed a tubal ligation that effectively ended her chances of having more children.

"They've done something. They cannot correct this," she told ABCNews.com. "You think you're safe at the hospital. You're not."

Savicki's attorney, Dr. Max Borten of Waltham, Mass., a licensed obstetrician-gynecologist who practiced for 30 years, said his client was devastated when she found out about the tubal ligation shortly after a December 2006 Cesarean section.

Awake with only spinal anesthesia, Saviciki "realized that when she was still on the table," he said.

Savicki's children range in age from 3 to 21 and she is a grandmother of one with another grandchild on the way. She had her first child, a boy, at age 13 after being raped, she told ABC News.

Getting back on her feet after a rough start -- two of her children are on welfare and she is unemployed -- Savicki said she's working toward her GED.

Her three youngest children are with her fiance, Angel Tirado, who she said was hoping for one more baby. Their youngest, Manuel, was recently diagnosed with autism.

"He was talking about trying for another boy," she said.

She understands that she would not be able to adopt, given her financial situation.

Borten said the chances of Savicki being able to become pregnant again, even if an attempt to reverse the procedure was performed, would be slim.

"The issue here is a little broader and more involved than what people think," Borten said, noting how sterilizations have been used throughout history to control populations deemed unsavory. "The issue is, who has the right to permanently sterilize a woman? Or a man?"

Savicki said she believes the doctors intentionally sterilized her without her consent. "I honestly think they thought I had enough," she said.

Jane Albert, a spokeswoman for Baystate Health, declined to comment on the lawsuit or Savicki's own medical care, citing federal privacy regulations.

But speaking in general terms, it is "absolutely not" normal procedure for a woman to carry her own IUD into the operating room, Albert said.

"It is not our practice for a patient, it is not our practice to insert an IUD into a woman who has just had a C-section," Albert said.

Hospital Confirms No Consent Record Found for Mother's Tubal Ligation

According to the complaint, filed Nov. 24 in Hampden Superior Court, Savicki had agreed prior to a scheduled Cesarean section that her doctors would implant the IUD into her uterus at the end of the procedure. Instead, her tubes were tied after the birth of her ninth child.

It's a procedure, according to the lawsuit, that requires written consent of the women 30 days prior if the patient's medical expenses are covered by the state, as Savicki's were. Neither the consent form nor an accompanying "physician's statement" to be filled out by the doctor were found in Savicki's medical records.

Albert confirmed to ABCNews.com that she had seen a copy of a May 22, 2009, letter from the hospital to Savicki's prior attorney confirming that no consent form for Savicki's tubal ligation was found by the hospital.


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Okay, my wife belongs to some stupid moronathon called CafeMom. It's about 25% helpful groups with tips and support, and 75% women who wish they were still in high school.

ANYWAY, she believes that they should have sterilized this woman, because anyone who has that many children is a drain on the system. I responded "arguably, isn't even one child a drain on the system? How many children is your cutoff, woman? And do you want doctors going in and performing unasked for surgeries on you?"

I don't care what else this woman may or may not have done, she's not a criminal, and even if she was, there are already laws in place for nearly every crime, and exactly ZERO PERCENT of them have sterilization as the penalty.

So, what do you more reasonable and sane people think about this situation?
 
I don't know if I count as a reasonable and sane person, but I want to hear the hospital's version of events before casting judgement.

Well, apart from the judgement of "nine kids? Bloody hell, lady. What the hell would you even want another one for anyway? It's not like you're going to get anything different."
 
The surgery needs to be compensated for, but having more kids... ***** needs a smack up the head. I would say no.
 
Well, I'd say her financial problems just got solved. The hospital cannot document her consent = guilty.

@ Greg: you're kidding, right? Children are not a commodity that one somehow is entitled to!

Other than that, the compensation here would be relatively high, even if there is no way to prove any intend from the side of the hospital. (Put it that way: How much would I have to pay a parent for them to give up one of their children? That's roughly the minimum range we should be looking at here!)

I don't think you will find much support here for the notion that the doctors did right and that she ought not to have any more children anyway. (And she was responsible abouot her situation too, given that she volunteered for a non-permanent solution.)
 
Sledge said:
I don't know if I count as a reasonable and sane person, but I want to hear the hospital's version of events before casting judgement.
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I need no more than hearing that they do not have the required paperwork on file.
 
Sorry, I'd forgotten we'd abolished the idea of judicial hearings instead of just accepting whichever version of events we hear first.
 
Rasmus said:
@ Greg: you're kidding, right? Children are not a commodity that one somehow is entitled to!
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That was my initial thought -- that you can't just "award" people human beings. But you know, it makes sense. I mean, the money solves it regardless. She gets money and can opt to use it to to adopt or whatever. I don't think the adoption agencies should feel compelled to allow a child to be placed into an unsafe situation or what they might consider to be a "bad home". But maybe if she decides to, the state should pull out whatever stops might have been been in place otherwise.
 
Dorian Gray said:
ANYWAY, she believes that they should have sterilized this woman, because anyone who has that many children is a drain on the system.
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Yes, the woman and her children are a drain on the system. But that doesn't mean the system should be empowered to sterilize her without her consent. There are consequences to giving the hospital such a power that would extend far beyond this individual case, so assigning that power based upon the outcome it would produce in this one instance is unjustified.
 
My wife and I have seven children, together with three miscarriages. My wife would happily had a dozen, but we didn't have our first until she was 30. Six of our children are working, paying taxes and helping to balance the aging Australian population. To say children are a drain on the system is ludricrous.

If the mother's version is true, the hospital is up for millions. Quite rightly.
 
Sledge said:
Sorry, I'd forgotten we'd abolished the idea of judicial hearings instead of just accepting whichever version of events we hear first.
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I understood that that *was* the hospital's version. Since I am neither judge nor jury, it's good eonugh for me to form an opinion. I'll be happy to revise it if the hospital can produce proof that the paperwork fairy is to blame, though.
 
lionking said:
My wife and I have seven children, together with three miscarriages. My wife would happily had a dozen, but we didn't have our first until she was 30. Six of our children are working, paying taxes and helping to balance the aging Australian population. To say children are a drain on the system is ludricrous.
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You may have missed the fact that this woman is on welfare (this article merely says unemployed but I read another that said she was on "public assistance", and it does state that two of her kids are on welfare), though, so she and her brood are a drain on the system.

Of course, the hospital still made a stupid mistake and should be held accountable... but I have no sympathy for this woman. Have as many children as you want, but don't expect others to pay for them.
 
lionking said:
My wife and I have seven children, together with three miscarriages. My wife would happily had a dozen, but we didn't have our first until she was 30. Six of our children are working, paying taxes and helping to balance the aging Australian population. To say children are a drain on the system is ludricrous.

If the mother's version is true, the hospital is up for millions. Quite rightly.
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So unlike the mother in the story here, multiple of your kids are not on wellfare? I wonder how many grandkids she has.
 
I am strongly pro-choice, therefore I support this woman's decision to have as many children as she would like. If she did not ask to be sterilized, the hospital and doctors deserve the inevitable malpractice suit.

My own feelings about having children when one is on welfare are not important. I can not make that choice for anyone.
 
Morrigan said:
You may have missed the fact that this woman is on welfare (this article merely says unemployed but I read another that said she was on "public assistance", and it does state that two of her kids are on welfare), though, so she and her brood are a drain on the system.
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No I saw that. My point is that the kids are likely (sure, not certain) to get jobs, pay taxes and support the similarly aging US population.
 
Cynic said:
This was definitely unwarranted.
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IF the story is accurate.

He we go again with another one of these threads where skeptics, who mostly know the news is rarely accurate, discuss a report which only describes one side of the story, act as if it is a given the story is actually correct in every detail. :rolleyes:

The story screams fishy to me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is: you would never insert an IUD just after a C-section without waiting for the uterus heal because you are just asking for adhesions to form. Scar tissue might grow around the IUD and it would have to be surgically removed later. Patients do not bring their own IUDs in to an OR. No doctor would insert the IUD the patient brought in because the doc would be risking liability if infection occurred. How could the OR ascertain the IUD was sterile?
 
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It might scream fishy to you but it sounds like plain ol' lack of communication to me.
Did the OBGYN really listen to and explain everything to this woman, or were there ten other patients in the waiting room and not enough coffee for the doctor to stay awake.

I've had a couple of babies and my OBGYNs were terrible communicators, yes I was poor and on welfare too maybe I wasn't important enough to pay any attention to.
When I had my last baby the doctor who showed up was a complete stranger to me.
 
skeptigirl said:
IF the story is accurate.

He we go again with another one of these threads where skeptics, who mostly know the news is rarely accurate, discuss a report which only describes one side of the story, act as if it is a given the story is actually correct in every detail. :rolleyes:

The story screams fishy to me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is: you would never insert an IUD just after a C-section without waiting for the uterus heal because you are just asking for adhesions to form. Scar tissue might grow around the IUD and it would have to be surgically removed later. Patients do not bring their own IUDs in to an OR. No doctor would insert the IUD the patient brought in because the doc would be risking liability if infection occurred. How could the OR ascertain the IUD was sterile?
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Skeptigirl beat me to it. It's not like you can go buy an IUD at the corner IUD store, bring it with you to a hospital, and wave it around till someone put it in. I also doubt that a surgeon would risk his or her career doing a procedure they knew the patient didn't want. There's got to be something else going on here. Plenty of things can go wrong with a c-section that might impair future fertility. The patient can mishear what the doctor said. The patient could have said what they wanted, then the consent got lost. So many different ways for this to go. Of course, in all cases like this, we're left with the patient's story, since the hospital is bound by law and ethics not to reveal details in public, even in their own defense, but the patient is free to say whatever they want, true or not. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the real courts. I wouldn't be surprised if the outcome is very different than in the court of public opinion.

A
 
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