Family Sues After Alzheimers' Misdiagnosis
S A L E M, Va., Aug. 27, 2000 -- The family of a man who committedsuicide after mistakenly being told he had Alzheimer’s disease hasfiled a $60 million wrongful-death complaint against the Departmentof Veterans Affairs.
Jack Ellis went to the VA Medical Center in Salem after he wasdiagnosed with lung cancer in 1997. In March 1998, Ellis and hiswife, Claudine, were talking to a psychiatrist before Ellis startedsome experimental medication. The doctor told Ellis that hisAlzheimer’s disease was going to get worse. He told Ellis he wouldsoon forget his family and that he shouldn’t drive home.
It was the first time the Alzheimer’s diagnosis had beenmentioned to Ellis or his wife. Claudine Ellis told her daughterthe news.
“I’ll call the doctor and set it straight,” Debbie Paintersaid. She planned to call the doctor the next morning.
She never got to make that call. Instead, she got a call thatmorning from her mother that her father shot himself in the head.Ellis died three days later when the wound became infected.
An autopsy performed two years later showed that Jack Ellis didnot have Alzheimer’s.
An earlier autopsy also showed that his lung cancer was notspreading and was at a treatable stage.
A Second ‘Jack Ellis’
A private investigator hired by the family discovered there wasanother Jack Ellis under care at the VA center, a Jack Ellis whowas being treated for an advanced case of Alzheimer’s.
His Social Security number is almost identical to their JackEllis, the investigator told the family. Painter thinks somewhere,her father’s medical file was mixed in with this other Jack Ellis’.
Painter thinks that mistake made her father give up on life andkill himself. In March, she, her sister, Julia Ball, and motherfiled their wrongful-death complaint against the VA.
Kathleen Oddo, regional counsel for the VA who is handling thecase, said the Ellis case is being reviewed and that she expects adecision within a few weeks. Once that report comes back, one ofthree things can happen, Oddo said.
The VA can accept the claim and settle it or deny it. If it isdenied, the family can ask the VA to reconsider the decision ortake the case to federal court. All complaints have to go throughthis initial phase before a case can move forward.