Benita Toussaint

I am a mother of four whose life was turned upside down in 1988.  My problems began when I was pregnant with another child.  My water broke in the fifth month of the pregnancy and I was admitted to the hospital.  By the following day I was running a high fever and the doctor said I would have to be induced.  My labor was induced by an untrained intern.  The baby died and the placenta would not come out.  The doctor punched and punched my stomach and finally put me under.

After that I could not hold a pregnancy.  I had two more pregnancies and the last of the three was in 1991.  This time, the physician mistakenly tied my left ovary and fallopian tube to a stomach wall.  Afterward the pain I experienced for the next 13 years was enormous.

Because of the continuing pain, I was told to go see an orthopedic surgeon.  He referred me to a psychiatrist.  No one would listen to me about the pain.  In our healthcare world, you just keep getting handed off to yet another doctor who won’t listen and answer questions.

Finally this past year, 2003, fifteen years after my initial problem began, I was told that the nerve root had grown together and my left ovary and fallopian tube were creating the pain I had been experiencing all these years.  In March 2004, another doctor found the harm that had been done to me and had made me so ill.  But I still suffer pain and anguish.

How could people so profoundly harm another individual under the guise of care?