The El Paso Politics received an email news blast from David Saucedo announcing that he has filed a federal complaint against El Paso Children’s Hospital with the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. El Paso Children’s Hospital, although officially a non-profit, is wholly owned by the University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) who is facing questions about the treatment of Covid-19 patients in its facilities.
As readers may remember, David Saucedo and his wife filed a malpractice lawsuit alleging lack of proper medical care at the children’s hospital on August 10, 2020. The lawsuit, which included doctors Roberto Canales and Roberto Fierro-Stevens, alleges that three-year-old Ivanna Saucedo died because the El Paso Children’s Hospital failed to provide proper medical care to her. The lawsuit is still making its rounds through the court system.
On October 7, Saucedo also filed another complaint against the children’s hospital with The Joint Commission that accredits the hospital. That complaint is pending action by the Commission.
In the latest complaint, Saucedo, in addition to naming the hospital has also named Cindy Stout, the CEO.
The text of the complaint reads:
“This complaint against the El Paso Children’s Hospital (EPCH) is based on a number of allegations, supporting documents, sworn affidavit, and our own experiences including the wrongful death of my three-year-old daughter.”
“EPCH has discarded their own quality protection measures and has violated its bylaws to accommodate and entice, with significant concessions, an untrained and unqualified physician, Dr. Roberto Canales, to do business with EPCH in exchange for millions of dollars in revenue and massive amounts of patients promised by Dr. Canales.”
“Dr. Mayes provided an affidavit as former chair of pediatrics, concluding that Dr. Canales was unqualified, posed a significant risk of injury, and that the request violated EPCH’s bylaws, policies and procedures. Dr. Mayes refused to sign off.”
“EPCH, CEO Cindy Stout and the Board of Directors knew Dr. Canales was unqualified and knew that its leading medical doctors and directors were repeatedly raising concerns that he posed a significant risk to patients. EPCH ignored these complaints, BYPASSED Dr. Mayes and the PICU Director to obtain approval over their rigorous objections.”
“CEO Stout notified staff that Dr. Canales would NOT be subject to EPCH’s required peer review process, as required in its bylaws. Instead, Dr. Canales can grade his own work without any accountability from his peers.”
“CEO Stout PROHIBITED EPCH’s ER and PICU medical directors and physicians from reviewing Dr. Canales’ inpatient charts.”
“EPCH implemented bolder policy changes to accommodate Dr. Canales’ massive influx of patients. They instituted policies to CIRCUMVENT long standing processes for the transport of patients to EPCH from outside the facility, admission policies such that Dr. Canales could claim “ownership” of patients admitted to other practitioners proving a separate admissions pathway through the nursing administrative office.”
“EPCH should be immediately investigated due to these dangerous arrangements that actively jeopardize the safety of children in El Paso.”
David Saucedo wrote in his email blast that “today we took the next step in ensuring that we continue to exhaust every avenue available to us to make sure that El Paso has a world-class children’s hospital and not one that operates on the model of profiteering with a complete disregard for it’s safeguards.” Saucedo concluded, “the children of El Paso, the most vulnerable amongst us, deserve better.”
El Paso Politics submitted a request for comment to El Paso Children’s Hospital. We will update the article with any comments we receive.
Wow! I think we are all waiting to see how this ends up. Is the administration of El Paso Children’s Hospital really that stupid, or is Mr. Saucedo just a guy with a vendetta? I guess time will tell.