From the Herald-Dispatch. Mon. Nov. 4, 2002. Brent Marsteller. Medical liability bill needs support

The Huntington area is blessed with some of the finest medical professionals in the country. Not long ago, many patients had to leave our area to receive medical treatments unavailable here. Today, that is rarely the case.

We are very fortunate to live in an area with a wide range of skilled medical specialists who offer compassionate, state-of-the-art care and treatment. More and more, however, communities across West Virginia, including the Huntington community, are losing excellent, much-needed doctors to early retirement and to other states. And to compound the situation, it has become increasingly difficult for our community to recruit new physicians and medical residents.

The current medical liability environment in our state is clearly the cause of this problem. And it is equally clear that substantial changes in our medical liability laws are needed if we are to retain and attract physicians in our communities.

Health-care professionals and supporters statewide recently drafted a bill that addresses these needed changes and have presented it to the legislative leadership. Over the coming weeks and months, it will be very important for everyone in our community who is concerned about this growing problem to voice their concerns to their legislative representatives, and to urge them to pass this bill.

Passage of this legislation would in no way take away a person’s right to seek and receive full compensation for medical expenses and lost wages as a result of medical malpractice. Nor would it take away a person’s right to seek and receive non-economic damages for pain and suffering.

But the time has come to place a cap on non-economic damages, as most other states have implemented. According to this bill, the cap would be set at $250,000. Doing this, according to the Office of Technology Assessment would be the single most effective way to slow the growth of liability insurance premiums, which are skyrocketing out of control.

In addition, the bill contains a number of other sensible measures that would help us keep and recruit doctors in West Virginia:

• It would limit the settlement an attorney can receive, so that more of the award goes to the patient than to the attorney.
• It would require that doctors who testify in medical liability cases be experts in the field of medicine in which they are testifying.
• It would ensure that each defendant in a medical liability case is responsible only for the damages for which they are at fault ¾ not who has the "deepest pockets."
• It would disclose to the court when other insurers have already paid for a plaintiff’s injuries, so that people who sue do not get paid more than once for the same damages.
• And it would place a limit on liability in cases where patients are treated in an emergency setting, unless there is clear evidence of negligence or wrongful conduct.

Our doctors need this legislation to be passed, but more important, our communities need this legislation to be passed. Please call or write your legislative representatives and let them know you support meaningful changes to our medical liability laws.

We have great doctors here in the Huntington area. Let’s all do our part to keep them here.

Brent A. Marsteller is president and CEO of Cabell Huntington Hospital.