Web posted
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Patients of jailed doctor sue
By ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press Writer
WICHITA -- Patients of a Kansas physician who is charged with running a ''pill mill'' linked to 56 overdose deaths plan to file a lawsuit claiming the government has put patients in immediate mortal danger and created a public health disaster.
The lawsuit, which names Attorney General Michael Mukasey, U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren, the state of Kansas and the Kansas Board of Healing Arts as defendants, was to be filed Tuesday by the New Mexico-based Pain Relief Network on behalf of the patients of Dr. Stephen Schneider.
Schneider and his wife, nurse Linda Schneider, were indicted in December on federal charges including conspiracy, unlawful distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death, health care fraud, illegal money transactions and money laundering.
Drugs mentioned in the indictment included Fentanyl, methadone, morphine and oxycodone.
Last month, the state suspended Schneider's license to practice, which forced him to close his Haysville clinic.
On Monday night, six of his supporters held a vigil outside Wesley Medical Center, where 68-year-old Vera Collins was hospitalized four days after she ran out of prescription painkillers. The hospital would say only that she was in stable condition.
''She was lying in an ICU bed crumpled up, incoherent. Didn't recognize anyone. Her body was in constant spasms. She was thrashing around. ... She was not conscious. She was in a very weakened state. She looked very, very ill,'' said Siobhan Reynolds, president of Pain Relief Network, who visited Collins at the hospital over the weekend.
Patient Lilly Shipman, 41, came out to pray for Collins and cried, saying she will probably be the next one lying in bed dying. Shipman, who is a diabetic, has one day left on her medications and cannot find a doctor willing to write her a prescription for insulin.
''The truth is there are going to be hundreds dying,'' Shipman said. ''What about us?''
Although they are not charged with killing any patients, the federal indictment links the Schneiders to 56 overdose deaths in the past five years of patients who had obtained pain medication at the clinic. The indictment alleges the Schneiders are directly responsible for only four of those deaths.
The group's lawsuit, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, seeks an emergency temporary restraining order. It contends the Board of Healing Arts and a Kansas district court ignored the danger to 1,000 medically vulnerable patients who have been forcibly abandoned and must now fend for themselves. The group contends pain is a significant cause of death, including progressive brain damage.
''Withdrawal for people who are sick is catastrophic,'' Reynolds said.
Jim Cross, spokesman for Melgren's office, said officials there haven't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment on it.
''When the lawsuit is filed, we will review it and respond appropriately,'' Cross said.
The Kansas Board of Healing Arts did not immediately return a call for comment late Monday.
The government charged the doctor and his wife with directly causing four deaths and contributing to the deaths of 11 other patients cited in the indictment.
Pain Relief Network contended the suspension of the jailed doctor's license by the state served no legitimate government interest, but harmed his pain patients because the state forced Schneider's clinic to close. Other local doctors -- after seeing the government's prosecution of Schneider -- have been reluctant to take on his patients.
''The suspension of Dr. Schneider's license is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to political pressure and does nothing more than cause harm to those least able to bear it,'' the lawsuit says.
It seeks an emergency order forcing the Board of Healing Arts to restore Schneider's medical license. It also seeks to restrain the Justice Department from harassing a new clinic to be opened under a different doctor, Dr. Joseph M. Sack, at Schneider's now-shuttered Haysville facility.
The group wants an injunction against the Justice Department prohibiting it from confiscating patient files or taking any other actions to impede its treatment of patients in severe pain. It also asks that prosecutors return to the clinic patient files taken in violation of federal law.
The lawsuit also asks the court to appoint a special master to oversee the reopened clinic's financial operations to protect it from charges of money laundering.
Pain Relief Network also noted in the suit that it will soon be filing a constitutional challenge to the Controlled Substances Act, but at the moment was seeking only a temporary restraining order to remedy the current emergency faced by patients.
Also on Monday, U.S. District Judge Wesley E. Brown issued an order in the separate criminal case, appointing the clinic's current administrator, Timothy MacDonald, as custodian of the patient records and ordering that he preserve original files and other records. Brown also ordered the clinic to provide to patients copies of files and respond to requests for files demanded by subpoenas.
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