Man sues Brigham and Women's over death of his wife

The widower of a woman who died at Brigham & Women's Hospital while delivering her first child is suing the hospital, alleging that doctors accidentally damaged at least two arteries during the emergency delivery, then disregarded signs that she was bleeding to death.

Attorney Jeffrey Denner, who is representing Andre Rouse and his daughter, said doctors and nurses should have responded more quickly to Inamarie Stith-Rouse's mounting distress and falling blood oxygen levels after they performed the emergency caesarean section on June 28, 2003. Instead, doctors did not perform surgery to find the source of the bleeding until five and a half hours later. Stith-Rouse died four days later. She was 33.

"It's a very sad situation," said Denner, of the law firm Denner O'Malley in Boston.

Brigham & Women's officials declined to discuss the suit, which was filed Dec. 17 in Suffolk Superior Court, because it is a pending legal matter. However, hospital spokesman Peter Brown said in a statement, "Patient safety is a top priority at Brigham and Women's Hospital and we are deeply saddened by this tragic event."

Denner acknowledged that Brigham & Women's, which delivers the most babies in New England, has an excellent reputation, ranking 12th for quality among all US hospitals, according to US News & World Report. Since 1995, the hospital has reported just 18 maternal deaths to state regulators, a period when nearly 100,000 babies were born there. However, Denner added, "Great hospitals sometimes give less than great care."

According to the complaint, Stith-Rouse went to the hospital at 3:30 a.m. on June 28, 2003, 41 weeks pregnant, and physicians gave her medication to bring on active labor. However, when the fetus's heartbeat dropped, Dr. Carolyn Cline decided to perform a caesarean section to deliver the baby immediately. Trinity Rouse was born healthy at 8:19 p.m.; her mother's condition began to deteriorate.

Denner said that Stith-Rouse's husband as well as her mother warned medical staff that Inamarie Stith-Rouse was scared and struggling to breath and that the oxygen level in her blood was dropping. Denner said they were told that "it was no big deal." When Stith-Rouse's blood pressure dropped precipitously at about 10:30 p.m., the complaint alleges, the medical staff did not recognize that she was suffering from internal bleeding.

At 2:45 a.m., five hours after the caesarean section, doctors Cline and Vivian Hernandez found the internal bleeding and began a hysterectomy to remove the uterus when they could not stop it. A third doctor, Michael Muto, stanched the blood flow by removing one ovary at 6 a.m. on June 29. However, Stith-Rouse had already suffered a massive hemorrhage and respiratory arrest, leading to her death on July 2, 2003.

Scott Allen can be reached at allen@globe.com.