New Lawsuit Hits ‘Botch’ Hosp

Foul-up at W’chester left daughter brain-damaged: mom

An angry mother yesterday accused Westchester Medical Center of botching a routine procedure on her daughter that left the young woman comatose and brain-damaged.

Her lawsuit is the newest trouble for the beleaguered hospital, where a 6-year-old boy undergoing an MRI died in July after he was hit on the head by an oxygen tank.

Juanita Boyd of New Rochelle filed suit yesterday, accusing the hospital of malpractice stemming from the March 28, 2000 outpatient procedure on her daughter Nancy, now 24.

A catheter was to be inserted into Nancy’s jugular vein so she could receive hemodialysis for kidney problems, but “they missed…and hit the vertebral artery, which sent her into a massive stroke,” according to her mother’s lawyer, David Worby.

“By the next morning, she was in emergency, life-saving surgery,” he said. “They saved her life, but she went into a coma.”

“Recently she came out of the coma,” Worby said. “She’s paralyzed on half her body. She can’t speak. In order to save her life they had to shave off a significant aspect of her brain. She’s permanently brain-damaged,” he said.

“It’s been a year and eight months since I’ve heard my daughter’s voice,” Boyd said.