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Doctor Sues His Own Hospital Over Wife's Death New York Lawyer May 30, 2006 By The Associated Press TACOMA, Wash. -- A hospital company is being sued by one of its own doctors, an anesthesiologist who says hospital staff failed to perform emergency surgery to save his wife. The lawsuit for unspecified damages was filed against the Franciscan Health System, owner of St. Joseph Medical Center, by Dr. Terry Phillips. Phillips' wife, Patty, a 55-year-old marathon runner, died there March 20. Phillips had worked at St. Joseph for more than a decade and still works for Franciscan, but at a facility in Federal Way. A nursing supervisor said early Tuesday that she did not know if Phillips was employed at the hospital at the time of his wife's death. Franciscan's policy is not to comment on litigation, spokesman Gale Robinette said. "Life was lost, and for that we express our deepest sympathies to the patients family and friends," Robinette said. "We always strive to provide the best care to everyone who comes to us." According to the lawsuit, Patty Phillips went to the hospital's emergency room March 19 with extreme abdominal pain. Her husband said he was certain it indicated a serious intestinal problem that required immediate surgery. Instead, he asserted in the lawsuit, she spent hours in a bed without standard monitoring machines in a storage area outside the hospital's radiology unit before she died. An autopsy revealed she had 20 inches of damaged intestine. Phillips, 56, of Gig Harbor, said he doesn't doubt the hospital's commitment to do a good job. "I don't have it in for St. Joe's," he said, adding that many doctors there are his friends and he considers some of the staff among the best in the business.
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