2023-05-15 04:00:00
A young woman from Beauce and her family are suing the family doctor for $3.6 million who allegedly prescribed her a contraceptive pill without first investigating her medical history, leading her to a thrombosis that left her disabled.
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Without her knowing it, Lydia St-Pierre’s life will have changed on September 26, 2017. It was on this date that she left the office of Dr Jean Falardeau with a birth control pill prescription.
PHOTO COURTESY: St-Pierre family/Couture
According to the lawsuit filed on May 3 at the Quebec City courthouse, the appointment only lasts a few minutes and the doctor never asked the patient regarding her medical history or that of her family.
However, his brother, whom he also followed, had been treated for deep vein thrombosis less than two years earlier, which placed the young woman at risk. And the combination with the contraceptive pill, which also increases the danger of thrombosis, would have plunged the young woman into the ordeal she is experiencing today.
Permanent sequelae
Lydia was rushed to hospital on May 8, 2020, following “multiple complaints” to her doctor for severe headaches. After her transfer from the Thetford Mines hospital to the Child Jesus, she was placed in a coma and operated on urgently.
“It was clogged to greatness. His brain was so swollen that they had to remove a flap from his cranium,” explained at that time to the Journal his father, Stéphane St-Pierre.
PHOTO COURTESY: St-Pierre family/Couture
COURTESY PHOTO, St-Pierre family/Couture
Three years later, the 22-year-old young woman has never regained what she lost during this hospitalization which turned her life upside down.
“She remains disabled in that she does not yet have the ability to walk, that she remains amnesiac and aphasic, in addition to needing constant assistance to carry out the majority of her movements and her daily activities. “, can we read in the lawsuit.
DIDIER DEBUSSCHERE/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
“Central venous thrombosis caused moderate to severe cognitive impairment,” the family adds in its application.
“Responsible for damages”
Lydia St-Pierre and her family intend to prove that the Dr Jean Falardeau, who practiced at the time at the Saint-Charles Medical Clinic, is “responsible for each and every one of the damages of which she is a victim”.
First, the young woman believes that the doctor should have investigated her background more deeply, in particular to check whether members of her family had developed thrombosis.
Then, the doctor should have referred her to further examinations in thrombophilia, which would have made it possible to diagnose her condition, a protein C deficiency. This hereditary condition would have forced the doctor to refuse to prescribe the young woman the contraceptive pill because of the high risk to his health, believe the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
$3.6M in total
Thus, Lydia St-Pierre is claiming $3.1 million from the doctor for a set of damages. His mother and father are also claiming $100,000 each, as are his four brothers and sisters who are each seeking $50,000, in addition to $20,000 for three of them who believe they have lost a school year in connection with their sister’s condition.
The Dr Jean Falardeau is therefore being sued for a total of $3.6 million. The doctor, still registered with the College of Physicians of Quebec and having a clean disciplinary record, retired at the end of 2022.
Joined by the Journalthe father of the young woman preferred not to comment on the lawsuit as the case is before the court.
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