Renal Failure Leads to Big Settlement.

A San Francisco man has won a $5.1 million malpractice settlement from the city after the staff at a municipal hospital botched his treatment for acute renal failure.

Court papers describe the 2005 incident this way: A 40-year-old man arrived at San Francisco General Hospital with fever and a cough that he said had lasted about a week. Hospital staff diagnosed acute renal failure and ad-ministered several doses of sedatives, but they didn’t monitor his condition until he went into cardiac and respiratory arrest.

During the nine minutes it took to stabilize him, the man suffered anoxic brain injury so severe that he continues to require round-the-clock care at a municipal skilled-nursing facility.

San Francisco General is a teaching hospital for the University of California, which was also named in the malpractice suit. It settled earlier for $850,000.

From the July 01, 2008 Issue of Renal and Urology News