A new lawsuit against Eastern New Mexico Medical Center (ENMMC), located in Roswell, is raising questions about the hospital and its commitment to patient safety. The suit claims that a man died after he fell at the hospital and staff failed to treat his injuries.
In July 2023, Phillip Pantuso, 76, was admitted to ENMMC and was given Warfarin, a powerful anticoagulant. Because of the medicine, hospital staff said he was at risk of falling down, but no precautions were taken. A day later, while trying to go to the bathroom, Pantuso fell and suffered catastrophic internal hemorrhaging.
But hospital staff reportedly failed to recognize the injury and didn’t bother to evaluate his fall. They merely recorded his vitals and discharged him three days later without further investigation.
Days later, he was readmitted due to pain and swelling. A CT scan finally revealed the extent of the internal hemorrhage. He was transferred to UMC Lubbock for emergency vascular surgery, but he didn’t survive the ordeal and passed away in late July 2023.
Pantuso’s family’s wrongful death lawsuit paints a portrait of negligence that was tragically preventable.
“It’s become par for the course, especially for New Mexico,” says Adrian O. Vega, a partner at Buckingham & Vega, part of the team representing the Pantuso family in the lawsuit.
“Across the country, I think, but specifically in New Mexico, there has been an influx of private equity, and that’s where out-of-state corporations are gobbling up local hospitals,” says Vega. “These are for-profit corporations. They put their revenues first. They’ll gut the hospital, and the quality of care will go down. And the patient safety goes down while the private equity or the for-profit corporations increase their revenues.”
The hospital is a part of a broader network controlled by Community Health Systems (CHS), a Fortune 500 for-profit hospital corporation based in Tennessee that operates facilities in dozens of states across the country.
In 2015, CHS agreed to pay the U.S. government $75 million after a number of its hospitals, including ENMMC, were accused of violating the False Claims Act by funneling improper donations to rural counties to game federal Medicaid matching programs.
The complaint accuses ENMMC of negligence, failure to implement standard fall prevention, failure to recognize the bleeding risk of anticoagulation and ignoring signs of internal injury. It includes claims of medical negligence, negligent hiring and training, wrongful death and punitive damages. It emphasizes how Pantuso’s wife, who is wheelchair-bound, lost not only her husband but a vital support system.
And unfortunately, this is no isolated incident. Buckingham & Vega are also involved in another lawsuit against ENMMC over a claim that a man died from a treatable form of cancer after hospital staff failed to inform him of the diagnosis. The doctor told the patient that he was fine and sent him on his way.
“Each of these two examples, they’re both preventable. They’re both obvious. The end game and the injuries are predictable, and the hospitals need to be held accountable for it,” says Vega.