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Petition to Congress to Amend the Federal Tort Claims Act:
To the Honorable Members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate:
We the undersigned join together in respectfully urging you to enact legislation that will amend the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) (28 U.S.C. Chapter 171) to allow our members of our military to have a right to pursue a medical malpractice claim, just like any other American has the right to pursue a claim for medical malpractice.
The Feres Doctrine is an antiquated exception to the FTCA that arose from a 1950’s Supreme Court decision that bars claims for “injuries arising out of or [occur] in the course of activit[ies] incident to service”. Feres v. United States (1950) 340 U.S. 135. This draconian law prohibits service members and their families from bringing a medical malpractice claim or wrongful death claim against a military hospital responsible for the injury or ultimate death of the service member.
The main issue that we would like Congress to address with the Feres Doctrine is that the Court’s interpretation has broadened the scope of the exception currently codified in the FTCA to encompass injuries that occur from noncombatant activities in a time of peace. The Feres Doctrine ignores the plain language of the FTCA and has led to unfair, absurd, and inconsistent results that treat service members differently than the rest of us. Most commonly, the Feres Doctrine has been used as an unfair defense that military medical personnel hide behind when such personnel fail to provide the basic care that would save a person’s life just because they are on active duty.
Sgt. First Class (SFC) Richard Stayskal’s story is a perfect example of the inequality that our service members and their families encounter due to the Feres Doctrine. We believe that a result of Fort Bragg Womack Army Medical Center’s failure to notify SFC Stayskal and remove the tumor that was noted on a CT scan taken in January 2017, a 36-year old U.S. Army Special Forces Green Beret now has stage four metastatic cancer and will leave a wife and two young daughters without a father.
Four months after his January 2017 CT scan, SFC Stayskal was rushed to Womack’s Medical Center after exhibiting severe respiratory issues, including coughing up blood. There, the military’s doctors conducted a retrospective review of his January CT scan and noted an abnormality/mass that needed attention and advised that a biopsy be taken. Instead of informing SFC Stayskal and his wife of this or expediting a pulmonary follow-up appointment, Womack discharged SFC Stayskal telling him he had pneumonia. After being told that he would have to wait at least one month to see a pulmonologist on base, SFC Stayskal was finally approved to see a civilian doctor in June 2017 and had a new CT scan taken. It was at that time that he and his family finally found out what was wrong. We believe the failure of the military’s doctor’s gross failure to detect and treat SFC Stayskal’s cancer when they took his first CT scan in January 2017 is the mistake that allowed the aggressive tumor to double in size and metastasize. And now SFC Stayskal and his family have no recourse due to the Feres Doctrine.
This is a very important issue, especially to the military and Veteran communities. We need Congressional intervention to change this unfair doctrine that has stripped hundreds of service members and their families of the same rights that all other citizens of our Country have when it comes to medical malpractice. |
The PPJ Gazette 
Nov 24, 2018 @ 02:58:36
AMA: ‘Inappropriate Use’ of CDC Guideline Should Stop
November 14, 2018
By Pat Anson, PNN Editor
Two and a half years after the release of the CDC’s opioid prescribing guideline, the American Medical Association has finally taken a stand against the “misapplication” and “inappropriate use” of the guideline by insurers, pharmacists, federal regulators and state governments.
Although the guideline is voluntary and only intended for primary care physicians treating non-cancer pain, many pain patients have been forcibly tapered to lower doses, cutoff entirely or even abandoned by their doctors – all under the guise of preventing addiction and overdoses. The CDC has stood by and done nothing to correct the false portrayal of its guideline by insurance companies and pharmacies such as CVS.
The genie may be out of the bottle, but the AMA is now trying put it back in.
At its interim meeting in Maryland this week, the AMA House of Delegates adopted a series of resolutions that call for restraint in implementing the CDC guideline – particularly as it applies to the agency’s maximum recommend dose of 90mg MME (morphine equivalent units).
RESOLVED that our AMA affirms that some patients with acute or chronic pain can benefit from taking opioids at greater dosages than recommended by the CDC Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids for chronic pain and that such care may be medically necessary and appropriate.
RESOLVED that our AMA advocate against the misapplication of the CDC Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids by pharmacists, health insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, legislatures, and governmental and private regulatory bodies in ways that prevent or limit access to opioid analgesia.
RESOLVED that our AMA advocate that no entity should use MME thresholds as anything more than guidance, and physicians should not be subject to professional discipline, loss of board certification, loss of clinical privileges, criminal prosecution, civil liability, or other penalties or practice limitations solely for prescribing opioids at a quantitative level above the MME thresholds found in the CDC Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids.
https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2018/11/14/ama-calls-for-misapplication-of-cdc-opioid-guideline-to-end
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