Continuing his effort to reverse current law and permit armed service members and their families to hold the military accountable for negligent health care, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) today urged the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on a bill he's drafted and the underlying law in question. In order to provide servicemen and women with the rights to hold the military accountable for medical malpractice, Hinchey last month introduced the Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act of 2008. The bill is named after the late Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez of Ellenville, New York, who died of skin cancer last year after a series of extraordinary mistakes made by military medical personnel.
"Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, federal prisoners and even illegal aliens in the United States have the ability to seek damages from the federal government for medical malpractice, but members of our nation's military still do not," Hinchey wrote in letters to House Armed Services Committee Ike Skelton (D-MO) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) urging them to hold hearings on the matter. "While I believe it is time for the Congress to put our military personnel on equal footing with all Americans, I understand that some consider this to be a controversial proposal. In my view, it is the responsibility of Congress to aggressively examine this issue out of respect to the sacrifices our servicemen and women have made in order to serve our country. Those sacrifices and service surely merit Congress taking the time to hold a discussion of the circumstances that face the men and women of the armed forces."
Hinchey's bill would legislatively reverse the U.S. Supreme Court's 1950 ruling in Feres vs. United States in which the court said military members and their families have no right or ability to sue the military for negligent medical care given to them during their service. The ruling, which has subsequently been referred to as the Feres Doctrine, has left families such as the Rodriguez family with no recourse for addressing the loss of a loved one due to obvious medical malpractice by military doctors and other medical personnel. In his letters to Skelton and Conyers, Hinchey urged the chairmen to examine both the U.S. Supreme Court ruling and his bill.
Rodriguez, a Marine who served in Iraq, died last year at the age of 29. Upon enrolling in the military in 1997, Rodriguez received an initial medical exam that revealed melanoma on his buttocks. The doctor making the diagnosis, however, failed to tell Rodriguez or refer him to a specialist. While serving in Iraq in 2005, Rodriguez was bothered by the area on his buttocks, which was constantly pussing and bleeding. A different military doctor repeatedly misdiagnosed the skin cancer as a birthmark or wart.
As the skin cancer worsened, Rodriguez's family was unable to receive a copy of his medical records from the Marines to give to other doctors. The family then asked Hinchey's office for help, but by the time the congressman's office received the medical records from the Marines it was too late. Carmelo Rodriguez had three surgeries, received radiation and chemotherapy, but it didn't save his life. The cancer had spread throughout Rodriguez's body and weakened him to the point that he went from being an athletic 190 pound man to weighing less than 80 pounds. He left behind a loving family, including a seven year old son.
