The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Health

July 31, 2007

Infection doc says hospital retaliated

STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A former doctor at Pocono Medical Center alleged in a lawsuit that she lost her job after reporting the hospital had an alarmingly high rate of infections in patients who underwent amputations.

Between 1998 and mid-2001, approximately 15 percent of the hospital’s amputation patients developed post-surgical infections, Dr. Lisa Esolen said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. Nationwide, the suit said, the average infection rate for such patients was about 3 percent.

Esolen, who gathered the data annually in her role as head of the hospital’s infection control program, called it an “alarming and unacceptably high” rate of infection. At least three patients died in 2001 from a post-amputation infection, she alleged.

Officials at the East Stroudsburg hospital responded by pressuring Esolen to change her findings, the suit alleges. When she refused, the suit claims, Esolen was harassed and, eventually, her contract as head of the infection control program was not renewed.

Esolen also claims she suffered financially after the hospital stopped referring patients to her private practice in the fall of 2005, though officials told her they would continue to do so.

The suit, filed in Monroe County Court of Common Pleas, seeks unspecified damages.

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