No matter how egregious their medical care may be, even resulting in death, military personnel cannot sue the government. This reality, in existence now for almost 60 years, has left Tommy and Connie Wilson of Hartwell, GA, sickened, fearing the doctors allegedly responsible for their daughter’s death will not be held accountable.
Their daughter, Cindy Wilson, was a 37-year-old technical sergeant in the
U.S. Air Force when she gave birth to her first child in February 2007 at Langley Air Force Base. Military doctors handling Wilson’s delivery decided to perform a cesarean section, and in the process, severed a uterine artery that caused massive internal bleeding. To make matters worse, two surgical sponges were left inside Wilson’s body. Although the baby lived, the mother died 12 hours after giving birth.
Wilson’s parents have no recourse against the Air Force because of the Feres Doctrine, which arose out of a 1950 U.S. Supreme Court case (
Feres v. United States) involving a soldier who died after an Army doctor left a 30-by-18-inch towel inside his body. The families of many other victims of military medical malpractice have not had their day in court, including a naval officer who died after his cancer was diagnosed as
eczema and an Air Force staff sergeant who was left brain-dead after doctors failed to diagnose his appendicitis in time.-Noel Brinkerhoff