Rupert Collins, an elderly patient from Napa, California says his “penis and urethra is permanently eroded away” after his insurer did not let health care providers remove a catheter, and he’s taking them to court.
The suit against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, filed in December, claims that while receiving care in the Napa Valley Care Center in July 2013, Collins began to experience problems with his Foley catheter.
A nurse sent a fax to Kaiser noting that the tissue was "red and swollen and cut."
Per the suit, repeated requests to Kaiser, the largest insurer in California, to "have a trial of no Foley" were denied and "his penis began to erode further and further each day."
Concerns of Collins’ “horrified” daughter were dismissed and Kaiser called the erosion "normal." At that point, according to the lawsuit, his penis was "split completely in half from the tip of his penis all the way down to the scrotum sac."
Collins is now suing for elder abuse, negligence, and unfair business practices. He seeks damages and attorney’s fees.
According to the suit, there is no documentation showing that a Kaiser physician came to personally examine him while these requests were being sent, and that, in fact, the Kaiser representative failed to show up to a care conference scheduled 2 days after the problems began.
On August 2, 13 days after the initial request, a Kaiser urologist who examined Collins called the erosion “complete” and concluded that “Rupert's penis would never heal and that reconstructive surgery was not a viable option.”
Collins claims that his treatment stems from Kaiser’s business practices which exist “in part because defendants unreasonably expect few adverse consequences will flow from their mistreatment of their elderly, demented, disabled and vulnerable clientele,” the suit claims.
