There is an update to a story we have been extensively covering for you since 2020 involving a malpractice lawsuit filed by David and Mariana Saucedo against doctors Roberto Canales, Rodolfo Fierro-Stevens and the El Paso Children Hospital over the death of their three-year-old daughter.
Readers may remember the Saucedo’s filed a malpractice lawsuit against the two doctors and the El Paso Children’s Hospital on August 10, 2020. The lawsuit alleges that the doctors and the children’s hospital were “grossly negligent” in the care they provided to the little girl who died at the hospital. Their daughter died on August 31, 2019.
Central to the case is an affidavit filed by Dr. Thomas C. Mayes that was attached to the lawsuit. The affidavit states that Mayes is board certified in pediatric medical care including critical care medicine. Mayes wrote in his affidavit that El Paso Children’s Hospital officials “ambushed” him demanding that he allow Canales to practice intensive care medicine even though the doctor did not meet the hospital’s regulations for practicing that type of medicine.
The ten-page affidavit lists several instances of hospital officials, including CEO Cindy Stout, attempting to “brow beat” Mayes into signing a waiver for Canales to practice pediatric critical care medicine at the El Paso Children’s Hospital.
Mayes ends his affidavit with “Canales presents a real danger to his patients and should be removed from the practice of medicine.”
After several court hearings, the judge in the case dropped the El Paso Children’s Hospital from the Saucedo lawsuit on December 18, 2024, after ruling that the children’s hospital had immunity against lawsuits because they are a “government entity.”
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The children’s hospital successfully argued that they were a government entity even though they are registered as a non-profit in the State of Texas. They based their argument on arguing that they are “a hospital district management contractor.” However, while arguing that they are a government entity for the purposes of immunity from civil lawsuits they routinely argue that they are not a government entity when denying our numerous open records requests under the Texas Public Information Act.
Although the El Paso Children’s Hospital was dropped from the lawsuit, both Canales and Fierro-Stevens remained.
On October 21, the judge on the case ruled that Roberto Canales’ and Rodolfo Fierro-Steven’s request to remove Mayes’ and Dr. Bradley Peterson’s “expert reports” from the case were rejected. The two doctors had also asked that the Saucedo lawsuit be dismissed. The judge denied their request to drop them from the lawsuit.
Both doctors must now address the expert testimony made against them by Mayes and Peterson. In the case against Canales, he must address the expert testimony of Mayes stating that “Canales presents a real danger to his patients and should be removed from the practice of medicine.”
El Paso News will continue to update you as new information becomes available in this malpractice case as we have for five years now.