PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon has agreed to pay nearly $400,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a woman who says the state failed to identify a serious heart ailment when she was an inmate at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.
When prison medical staff finally sent Katherine Anderson to a hospital emergency room in late 2007, she was found to be suffering from bacterial endocarditis and underwent emergency surgery.
The Oregonian reports the illness is easily treatable if found early. But it says medical records show prison medical staffers for months ignored or dismissed signs of the ailment.
Anderson suffered permanent heart damage. She was released from prison not long after her surgery. She later sued in federal court, accusing the prison medical staff of malpractice and of violating her right to essential medical care. Taxpayers spent nearly $130,000 in emergency care for her outside the prison infirmary.
