Tobyhanna woman is awarded $1.75 million for doctors’ negligence
Northampton jury finds physicians failed to promptly diagnose and treat her condition, leaving her incontinent.
- Publication: The Morning Call
- Date: 2000
A Northampton County jury on Friday awarded $1.75 million to a Tobyhanna Township woman who became permanently incontinent after doctors failed to properly and promptly diagnose and treat her condition.
The jury sat through two weeks of testimony and deliberated for about four hours before finding Dr. Ghodrat Daneshdoost of Bethlehem 85 percent responsible for 43-year-old Khadijah Ali’s injuries.
Dr. Gabriel Matyasik, who saw Ali in the emergency room at Muhlenberg Hospital Center, was found 10 percent responsible, and Stroudsburg urologist Dr. James Kline of East Stroudsburg 5 percent responsible.
Muhlenberg was dismissed from the case by Senior Judge Isaac Garb before the case went to the jury.
“Like anyone living with this situation and the complications that arise from it, they must alter their life and make adjustments to what their social and personal habits are,” said Ali’s attorney, Todd Miller of Allentown, speaking on behalf of Ali and her husband. They were also represented by Neil Conroy.
Daneshdoost’s lawyer, Louis Riefkohl, refused to comment on the verdict, and attorneys for Matyasik and Kline could not be reached.
Miller said Ali, a former Easton resident, suffered a herniated disk in her lower back due to a taxi accident in September of 1991.
From 1992 to 1994, she received physical therapy from Kim. She saw improvement but she also had occasional problems.
In June 1994, Miller said, she began to complain to Daneshdoost about problems with urination and bowel control.
On June 13, 1994, Kim set up an appointment for her with Daneshdoost, which was scheduled for two weeks. Immediately after her fathers funeral on June 17, 1994, she went to Muhlenberg where Martyak recorded her symptoms and told her to see Daneshdoost.
When Ali went to Daneshdoost, on June 24, 1994, “He looks at her, finds out she has no insurance and gave her a list of hospitals in Philadelphia,” Miller said. “He never told her it was a neurosurgery emergency”.
Ali made an appointment at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for June 29, 1994. After doctors there saw her they operated same day but it was too late and the nerve damage was permanent, Miller said.
