What could a Community Patient Agency make transparent to patients that the medical community would not? At the time of this writing more than 160 civil suits have been brought against Dr. Durrani. Why didn’t someone in medicine begin warning patients after the first hundred? Or the first 50? Why did another hundred patients have to be harmed?
One hundred at a minimum. The vast majority of patients with legitimate grievances cannot get lawyers. So if 160 did get lawyers, there are many times that number who did not. It takes numbers like that for information like this to become so widespread that medicine has trouble containing it.
Transparency from Caregivers as a solution?
Dr. Durrani had another surgeon operate in his name. That’s one health care professional who did not warn patients. Durrani instructed others to write Oxycodone prescriptions on scrips he had pre-signed. That is several more.
160 patients have filed civil suits claiming he performed unnecessary surgeries. In U.S. District Court in Cincinnati the local district attorney has filed 36 criminal charges.
False Diagnoses / Unnecessary Surgeries
Durrani is accused of making false diagnoses and performing or attempting to perform unnecessary surgeries. You can read the indictment at this link.
Attorney Eric Deters, who represents patients suing Durrani, has sued Children’s Hospital on behalf of more than 120 of them claiming the hospital covered up Durrani’s “incompetence and negligence.” He alleges that Children’s withheld “truthful and accurate information” about Durrani and the plaintiffs never would have accepted Durrani’s treatment if they had known his history.
Deters claims he has records from Banfield Pet Hospital confirming that Durrani’s dog, Hank, has MRSA/MRSI. He said the records also show that hospital staff told Durrani about the risk of transmitting the infection to people. Yet the dog was allowed to roam around his medical offices. One of his patients contracted MRSA. She is 6 foot 1 inch tall and ended up weighing only 90 pounds. She never can work again.
Where Were the State Medical Boards?
With this many patients harmed, is it possible that multiple complaints were not filed? And if they were not, what does it say about state medical boards as protectors of patients if they cannot even make their complaint process well enough known and accessible for patients to have filed complaints?
Deters said, “Based upon the charges in the indictment, including the prescription issue, I would hope . . . that Ohio State and Kentucky Medical Board finally take this guy’s license.”
Durrani already faces federal health-care fraud charges for allegedly billing private and public health-care programs millions of dollars for fraudulent services. The new federal charges carry a potential prison sentence of up to 125 years. If anyone in medicine had been willing to protect patients from him, he might not be in so much trouble. The same would be true for lots of unfortunate patients.
The patient community needs people on their side who will.