Latest news with #2019
Wall Street Journal
15 hours ago
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Notable & Quotable: Grace-Marie Turner
From a Feb. 27, 2019 Journal op-ed by Galen Institute president Grace-Marie Turner, who died May 29:
Time of India
16 hours ago
- Health
- Time of India
Pvt hospitals told to pay Rs35L relief in 2 med negligence cases
Trichy: The district consumer forum has ordered compensation in two cases of medical negligence during caesarean section procedures conducted at private healthcare facilities in Trichy. In one case, a Trichy resident experienced persistent abdominal pain after undergoing caesarean section at a local clinic in Feb 2018. Nearly a year later, a scan revealed a 26x6 mm hypoechoic tract in the subcutaneous layer, caused by the retention of a non-absorbable Prolene suture. In April 2019, she underwent surgery which included scar excision and sinus tract exploration to remove the embedded suture material. In its order dated May 23, the commission held that the doctors had failed in their duty to ensure proper surgical closure and adequate post-operative monitoring. The constituted medical negligence and deficiency in service under Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Hence, the commission ordered the clinic to pay ₹5 lakh as compensation to the complainant for negligence, ₹52,000 as reimbursement for medical and surgical expenses, and ₹10,000 as litigation costs. In a separate order dated May 22, the commission awarded compensation in a similar case involving a 26-year-old woman. It was alleged that spinal anaesthesia was administered incorrectly, on the wrong nerve, during her caesarean section in Sept 2022. Subsequent scans revealed disc bulges, which have resulted in ongoing difficulties with walking, sitting, and difficulty in doing other basic activities. The commission found the healthcare providers guilty of deficiency in service due to negligent administration of spinal anaesthesia. Consequently, it directed the parties involved to pay the victim ₹30 lakh as compensation, along with ₹15,000 towards legal expenses.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Veterans fume after VA partially blames them for overpayments it claws back
Christopher Praino signed a waiver relinquishing his disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs after he was ordered to active duty in fall 2019. In a letter, the VA confirmed it would terminate his roughly $965 monthly payments because, by law, he could not receive both VA benefits and active-duty pay at the same time. But the agency did not fully halt the payments. Instead, it sent various monthly amounts over the next three years, ranging from $0 to over $2,000, Praino's records show. 'The VA never stopped,' he said, 'after response after response, call after call, walk-in after walk-in.' In 2023, despite Praino's repeated efforts to rectify the inconsistent installments that should have ended years ago, the VA informed him in a letter that he owed nearly $68,000. That year, the government began automatically clawing some of the money out of his military paychecks, which he uses to support five children and his wife, leaving him in dire financial straits. 'No words can tell you the emotional, mental and physical heartache I have every day dealing with this,' he said. 'It's eating away at me.' In a recent congressional oversight hearing focused on why the VA regularly overpays veterans and then asks for the money back, agency officials partially blamed veterans for the exorbitant errors, telling lawmakers that some veterans have been failing to report eligibility changes that would have lowered their monthly disability compensation or pension payments. But Praino and two other veterans told NBC News they did notify the VA in a timely manner. Yet, records show the agency continued overpaying them for months, sometimes years, before asking for the money back. The long-delayed adjustments, which can cause veterans to incur life-changing debts, may indicate another operational shortfall at the VA weeks after officials testified that the agency doles out about $1 billion in overpayments each year due to administrative errors and other factors. The VA overpaid about $5.1 billion in disability compensation and pension payments from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2024, according to Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs. The issue is recurring and getting worse, Luttrell told NBC News, even as the Trump administration has cut billions of dollars in grants and slashed thousands of federal jobs in an attempt to trim what it sees as waste and inefficiency in federal spending. 'It's not the veterans' fault,' Luttrell said. 'It's the system that is failing.' In a statement, VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz said the agency, under new leadership, is 'working hard to fix longstanding problems, such as billions of dollars per year in overpayments.' Luttrell said the overpayment issue is complex, largely stemming from tiers of human error and an outdated computer system that he said does not adequately allow information to be shared between local and national VA offices. 'You have to get the software to talk to each other. You have to get the veterans to communicate. You have to get the actors inside the VA to move accordingly, and then you have to make sure the system is lined out as it needs to be,' he said. 'That is such a complex problem set to solve.' In 2015, after his divorce was finalized, veteran Brent Aber said he went to his local VA's office in Akron, Ohio, to remove his ex-wife as a dependent. 'I thought, OK, all is done,' he said. Aber said it felt like he was officially closing a difficult chapter in his life. But eight years later, another nightmare emerged when the national VA's Debt Management Center sent him a letter, notifying him that he had to pay back more than $17,700. Aber, who served in both the Navy and Army for a dozen years, said he called the VA to find out how he accrued this debt. He said he was told that different VA computer systems do not communicate with one another, meaning the dependent removal may have never been registered nationally, and his monthly payments had not decreased as they should have. Kasperowicz, the VA spokesperson, disputed claims made by Aber and Luttrell about the computer systems, saying the VA has had a centralized claims system since 2013 that 'ensures updated information is reflected' for each veteran. Upon follow-up, Luttrell could not be reached for comment on the VA's dispute. Kasperowicz did not offer an explanation as to what happened in Aber's case and said the VA has no record of his dependent change request from 2015. Aber said he spent more than a year fighting the recoupment and claimed financial hardship. But in May, the VA began withholding nearly $500 from his monthly compensation payments until the debt is cleared. To make up for the loss, Aber, who lost both of his legs in a training accident and is now mostly bedridden, said he stopped using a house cleaning service and is mostly eating cheaper, microwavable food. 'I provided all the paperwork at the time of the divorce, but that didn't seem to matter,' he said. The 50-year-old said the VA's recoupment hurts more as he fights for medical care. He said he has been struggling with severe pain and swelling since he underwent revision surgery on his limbs about two years ago with the hopes of getting fitted again for prosthetics. While Aber said his primary care doctor referred him to an orthopedic surgeon with expertise in double amputations, he said the VA denied the referral. Kasperowicz said the "entirety of the VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System orthopedic section" and other health care providers have evaluated Aber and "all have agreed that there are no additional surgical options that would provide him pain relief or improved function." "The medical consensus is to continue amputee clinic, physical therapy, pain management and behavioral health treatments to address the complexity of his condition," Kasperowicz said. Aber said the double battle he has been waging against the VA has left him feeling frustrated and betrayed. 'I feel like I've been completely done wrong,' he said. In Bonaire, Georgia, veteran John Mullens reported a dependent change in February after his 18-year-old son became eligible for a separate VA educational benefit that provides monthly payments to cover the cost of school. By law, veterans cannot receive both benefits at the same time, which Mullens knew from his own research. NBC News reviewed records from his VA portal, showing he filed a request to remove a dependent on Feb. 18. The claim was assigned to a reviewer on Feb. 19, the portal shows. And there were no other updates until May when Mullens received a letter from the VA, alerting him to the duplicate payments, which the VA said resulted in about $340 in overpayments each month. 'They did nothing with the information and continued to overpay me,' Mullens, 55, said. 'The processes are broken.' Kasperowicz said it currently takes an average of about 21 days for the VA to remove a dependent and an average of about 91 days to add one. Of the nearly $1.4 billion overpaid in fiscal year 2021, Kasperowicz said about $913 million was related to dependent changes. The VA does not track data showing how many veterans in overpayment cases actually did report changes on time, Kasperowicz said. The overpayments sometimes span many years. In 2023, the VA temporarily suspended the collection of pension debts for thousands of low-income wartime veterans and their survivors after the agency identified an issue with its income verification that led to overpayments between 2011 and 2022. On May 14, Luttrell and other members of the House subcommittee pressed VA officials to explain how the agency planned to fix the problem. Nina Tann, executive director of the VA's compensation service, testified that the agency, which serves about 9.1 million people, has a 'heightened risk' of making improper payments due to the large number of beneficiaries and the high-dollar amounts it doles out. Tann said the agency has taken steps to prevent, detect and correct the issue, including being better about notifying veterans that they need to report changes. Tann also said the VA fixed an administrative error in January that had been causing duplicate payments for about 15,000 veterans with dependents in fiscal year 2024. The agency did not force those veterans to repay the money, she said. Kasperowicz said the VA does not seek to recoup overpayments when administrative errors, including issues related to the VA's online filing platform, are to blame. But Praino, who owes almost $68,000 after re-enlisting, said it has been challenging to prove the VA made an administrative error. 'They will not admit any mistake,' said Praino, 42, an Army sergeant first class, who has been serving in the National Guard full time since 2019. The VA did not immediately comment on Praino's case. The VA transferred Praino's debt to the Treasury Department, which notified Praino in a December 2023 letter that it is required to withhold up to 15% of his federal wages. The Treasury Department began automatically garnishing about $800 from his monthly paychecks in 2023, according to documents provided by Praino. Praino, who is based in Georgia, now takes home about $3,800 a month, which he said barely covers the rent. With car payments, student loans and other expenses and bills, Praino said he has been racking up his credit card with essential purchases like food for his family. Praino said he has post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and traumatic brain injury after first serving in the Navy from 2001 to 2003 and then in the Army. 'When you add a financial crisis to the mix, and you're continuing to serve, which is always a high-stress environment 24/7, my emotional state, my mental state, it is a wreck,' he said. This article was originally published on
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Automotive
- Daily Mail
Porsche halts sale of electric vehicle over fears its battery will catch FIRE
Porsche has paused sales of one it its electric cars due to fears the batteries will catch fire. Released in 2019, the Taycan quickly became one of the most popular luxury electric vehicles, but a string of safety malfunctions has marred its reputation. Now, Porsche is worried that 'a batch' of the first-generation model have faulty battery packs. The issue is thought to involve a potential short circuit inside the battery, which 'could lead to thermal events and later to a fire in the vehicle'. It is understood the decision halt sales last week is related to a recall issued by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) in November. The luxury car manufacturer's official used car dealers were sent a bulletin from Porsche head office instructing them to take a number of the affected Taycan models off sale immediately, according to Car Dealer Magazine. The Taycan model has been been subject to a dozen safety recalls in the past four years, including brake, suspension and welding defects. Released in 2019, the Taycan quickly became one of the most popular luxury electric vehicles, but a string of safety malfunctions has marred its reputation In May 2024, Porsche Taycan models Y1A, Y1B and Y1C for the year range 2019-2023, were recalled with manufacturers citing a risk of fire from the faulty batteries. And in July 2021, the supercar firm issued a recall for thousands of Taycans over faulty software that caused the £70,000 EV to suddenly shut down. Electric car fires in the UK have went up by 77 per cent between 2022 and 2024, according to figures from QBE Insurance suggest, and fire brigades were called out to 232 incidents last year. In September 2023, a Taycan burst into flames on the street in Chongqing, southwestern China, during heavy rush hour traffic.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Health
- Telegraph
At 20 I was told I had a brain tumour. A clinical trial changed everything
Of all the things I thought might happen when I went off to university, being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness wasn't one of them. You don't consider the prospect of getting seriously ill when you're a healthy man in your early 20s. It's something that happens to other people, ones that you'll never meet, who surely aren't much like you at all. But there I was in the doctor's office in 2019, aged 20, being told that I had a brain tumour. To be precise, it was a grade one pilocytic astrocytoma, a slow-growing lump the size of a walnut where my head meets my spine. I'd never heard of it before, despite the fact that young adults like me are more likely to get a tumour of this sort than any other. Just the sound of it, the long, complicated medical term that made everything 10 times scarier, was more serious than anything I was equipped to deal with at that age. When the news came, my mum stared at me, clearly in shock and looking for anything to say that would make it better. My dad burst into tears. I had never seen him sob like that before. I coped with humour. 'Well, isn't that a shocker?' I said to the doctor. I took a photo that I thought was funny and sent it to all of my friends, with the caption: 'Guess who has a brain tumour'. It was only when I got home the following night that the bad news sunk in. Alone in my room, with no one to put on a brave face for, I cried and cried for hours, thinking that my life was completely over. I took another photo, knowing that it would be my lowest moment. I didn't show that to anyone. I'd always been fit and healthy. I was into skiing and snowboarding, but what I really loved was football. I was well-liked at university, making a huge group of friends that I'd play friendlies and go on nights out with. But then I started to get this strange 'fuzzy' feeling, first in my arm and then in my lower body. It took more effort to kick a ball about, as if my leg had become too heavy to lift. I studied product design at Nottingham Trent, so I was working with my hands most of the time, and a few weeks after that, I found that I was struggling to move my fingers, too. At the time I was training for a marathon with some of my sporty friends, doing long runs multiple times a week, so I put it all down to fatigue. Then one day, as I was working, my hands started to shake uncontrollably. I phoned my mum straight away, and that's when she told me that I should go to the doctor, just to check that everything was fine. At my initial appointment I was actually told that I 'definitely have multiple sclerosis'. I went to my brother's birthday party straight afterwards, and my mum said that that couldn't be right, and that I should get a scan to see what the problem really was. It was a relief: she's always right when it comes to health issues, and most people who have MS aren't diagnosed until their 30s. That's how I ended up in the doctor's office receiving my diagnosis, after a brain scan. The tumour in my head had been growing for years, and it was just starting to reveal itself, leaking fluid and pushing on the nerves that send signals to my arms and legs and causing the 'fuzziness' I felt. Survival rates for this kind of tumour are high, at over 90 per cent, but that statistic hides just how debilitating it is to have a massive growth in your head. So does the fact that tumours like mine are 'benign', or non-cancerous. It wasn't necessarily good news. This only means that chemotherapy doesn't work, 'so we have to operate,' said the doctor. It would be a major surgery that required weeks of recovery, but that was meant to be fairly low-risk. This is where my problems really started. A week after my diagnosis, I was introduced to the oncology team (who deal with benign tumours too) at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, and the following month I had my operation. It was a planned two-hour surgery to remove the fluid that had leaked out, and then the tumour itself. When the doctors went to tackle the growth, though, my brain collapsed in on itself and I suffered a major stroke. When I woke up, I couldn't walk. I had lost most of my ability to speak, too. All I could say was 'yes' and 'go away'. I'd been told by my surgeons that this could happen, but that the risk was 'less than 1 per cent'. Again, I thought that the unlucky person in every hundred would be someone else, and I'd soon be able to go back to my normal life. So I was unlucky twice, and left with little chance of ever walking or speaking normally again. It took a lot of rehab, speech therapy, and proton beam therapy (a kind of radiotherapy to incinerate and shrink the tumour since it can't be removed) for me to get back on my feet. I can speak normally now, but I still don't have movement in my right hand, and my right leg lags behind me when I walk. So much for football. My life was far from normal. I was left with headaches and a massive amount of fatigue, but worst of all were my seizures. I had seven in as many months, and when each came, I was convinced that I was dying. I saw flashes of light, colours and patterns. Thankfully my mum is a nurse, and my sister is a paramedic, so there was always help to hand. I remember once coming around and seeing my mum and three of her friends – all nurses – standing over me. It was July 2020, and they'd been on a WhatsApp call when my seizure started. We live in a tiny village, so they all rushed over to help. Outside there were three ambulances and a paramedic car. It made me feel so ill and so helpless. I was pretty much resigned to being ill forever. I was already on anti-seizure medication, and yet they kept coming. But my mum didn't give up hope: she and my oncologist, Dr Helen Benghiat, searched dozens of websites for clinical trials, and finally Dr Benghiat found a trial that I might have been eligible for in the United States, via the Sarah Cannon Research Institute UK (part of HCA Healthcare UK), for a new drug that could potentially shrink brain tumours. I haven't had a seizure since starting the trial in 2021, and my tumour has shrunk slightly. It certainly isn't growing, which means that I can get on with my recovery in a way that I couldn't before. Being on a clinical trial changed my life in other ways, too. It gave me the chance to feel that I was making a real difference when my life had changed hugely, and I didn't know what the future would hold. I was surrounded by people on other trials for different types of cancers and there was a sense that we were all in it together. It also meant that I had access to regular check-ups and brain scans to monitor my progress, something I wouldn't have had on the NHS. The reassurance that all is going well has allowed me to move on in a way I never could have otherwise. At 26, I still live at home with my parents, which isn't how I thought my life would be. I'm making progress, but I'm not the popular, care-free young man I was. One of the hardest and most shocking things about becoming seriously ill was seeing my friends disappear. I was well and truly 'ghosted': people I thought I was close with, and would have stuck with through anything, vanished completely. I imagine they just didn't want to think about the dark side of life that what happened to me had thrown up. On the other hand, I've had support from places I never would have imagined. I started doing coffee mornings for The Brain Tumour Charity, which some of my old friends from school turned out to. One of those people was my girlfriend, Lucy. Six months ago she messaged me on Facebook asking for the details to come along. At the event itself, we clicked instantly, and we've been together ever since. It's hard to picture the future when you have a serious illness. Not long ago, I thought I'd never get married or have kids – why burden someone else with a problem like this? But Lucy has changed all of that for me. I keep telling her that I won't blame her if this all becomes too much and she needs to leave, but she keeps telling me that she wants to be with me and to help me as I recover. I'm back at work, with a part-time job managing mobile phone contracts for the NHS. Everyone I work with is incredibly understanding, giving me time off for appointments and fatigue when I just can't make it in. I finished my product design degree in three years despite my brain tumour. As part of my coursework I made a discreet seizure protection hat. At the time I was being told that I needed to wear a seizure helmet in case I hurt myself, but they're just so ugly and obvious. I couldn't imagine myself wearing one on a night out, and I knew lots of other people my age must have felt the same. I'd love to roll the cap out to other people. I wear it myself for now, just in case my seizures come back. Now I'm a young ambassador for The Brain Tumour Charity. There were 21 of us in total when I joined, but now there are just 18. It's something that I do feel guilty about. As the first person in Britain to join the clinical trial that has let me lead a close-to-normal life, there's a cloud hanging over me, the sense that I was lucky when others weren't. That really hit home at the funeral for one of my best friends Harry Thompson, another ambassador, who died at the end of November last year. He was only 23.
