1 dead, 5 ill after knee shots at West Columbia pain clinic, legal actions say

Last December, George Nichols got a shot for pain in his left knee at the Vitality Medical Center in West Columbia. Almost immediately, his knee began to hurt and swell up.

A few days later, in great pain, he checked into Newberry County Memorial Hospital. He never went home again, but died at another hospital Jan. 31, according to a legal action filed against Vitality and one of its doctors, John Stavrakas.

Nichols, 86, was one of six people who were infected by the dangerous germ Staphylococcus aureus, according to the legal action, which seeks damages for his death and more than $134,000 in medical expenses incurred by his family, according to the legal action.

All six were hospitalized following knee injections.

One of the main pieces of evidence in the legal action filed by the Nichols family, which is called a notice of intent to file suit, is an investigation in late December at Vitality Clinic by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

It found that six patients who had been given knee injections for pain in mid-December at the clinic developed Staphylococcus infections and had to be hospitalized, according to the investigation. These type of infections are particularly dangerous because they can be resistant to traditional antibiotics, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The investigation also found that simple, basic precautions of cleanliness weren’t being followed at the pain clinic, including a lack of hand hygiene and sterile gloves not being worn when a patient’s knee was injected.

Stavrakos declined to be interviewed, and his office referred a reporter for The State newspaper to a spokesperson for the Houston-based company.

The company issued this statement in response to queries from The State: “Vitality promptly notified our patients and voluntarily called DHEC when we became suspicious of a potential infection issue. We asked DHEC to help with determining any potential sources of infection and to help Vitality’s continued efforts for the safety of its patients.”

Besides the notice of intent filed by Nichols’ family, two other notices of intent to sue Vitality and Stavrakas have been filed by two other patients, Effie Kennedy and Laura Wicks. They also had to be hospitalized after getting knee injections for pain at Vitality, but survived, according to the lawsuits.

Patient safety advocate Helen Haskell, whose son Lewis Wardlaw Blackman died needlessly from a combination of medical errors in 2000 at the Medical University of South Carolina, said last week that the cleanliness standards cited in the DHEC report are crucial to patients.

“The basis of modern medicine is good hygiene,” said Haskell, who formed the group Mothers Against Medical Error with a financial settlement in Lewis’ death and has worked for patient safety reforms in South Carolina and nationwide. “Doctors and nurses washing their hands is about as basic as it gets.”

Some health care workers “get complacent because germs are invisible and their potentially deadly effects don’t happen immediately,” Haskell said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns about unsafe injection practices and maintains they don’t have to happen.

“Unsafe injection practices put patients and health care providers at risk of infectious and noninfectious adverse events and have been associated with a wide variety of procedures and settings. This harm is preventable,” the CDC says.

Notices of intent to file suit are required under state law before a medical malpractice lawsuit can actually be filed. The notice forces parties to engage in mediation to see if a trial can be avoided.

Columbia attorney Brink Hinson, who represents Alice Nichols, the widow of George Nichols, said, “George Nichols went to Vitality Medical Center seeking relief from arthritic pain to improve his quality of life. Instead, he received a contaminated injection that ultimately took his life. This tragedy could have been prevented if reasonable safety precautions had been followed.”

Columbia attorney Brady Thomas, who along with attorney Henry Taylor represents Kennedy and Wicks, said lawsuits are the only way for patients who’ve suffered needless financial and physical damages because of medical errors to be compensated for their losses.

“According to the DHEC report, we are talking about really basic sanitary steps that should have been taken to prevent these infections from occurring,” Thomas said.

“Both of them were independent people, and their families have really had to step up and take care of them because they’ve lost a lot of mobility,” Thomas said.

Kennedy’s medical bills so far from the alleged unsanitary shots are more than $191,000, according to legal papers. Wicks’ medical bills have not yet been tallied but are expected to be substantial, according to legal papers.

Nichols’ bills from hospitals and including Vitality are running $132,000 so far, according to legal papers.

Hinson said, “We hope we can settle, but if we don’t, we will be glad to go to court and try the case before a jury.”

This story was originally published July 23, 2017 at 3:48 PM with the headline "1 dead, 5 ill after knee shots at West Columbia pain clinic, legal actions say."