BENTONVILLE, Ark. (Legal Newsline) - Health care providers in Arkansas face a wrongful death lawsuit over surgery performed on a woman with only one working kidney whose previous gastric bypass did not result in weight loss.
Dr. Mark Perna performed the surgery on New Year's Eve 2019 and damaged Sheila Pitts' ureter, says a lawsuit filed Dec. 29 in Benton County Circuit Court. Other defendants include Mercy Hospital Rogers, Mercy Health Northwest Arkansas Communities and Sisters of Mercy Health System, St. Louis Inc.
Perna performed a gastric bypass on Pitts but she was unable to "maintain a healthy weight," the suit says. Perna then ordered the insertion of a Stamm Gastrostomy tube but did not consult with a urologist, it adds.
Damage to Pitts' ureter led to a "cascade of harmful injuries that ultimately caused her untimely death," the suit says.
Perna never should have continued the surgery after the damage to the ureter, the suit says. It was filed by Phil Votaw and Jordan Blackwood of Phil Votaw & Associates in Fort Smith.