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An Iowa woman died after a routine hernia repair, as she suffered from an infection and deadly constipation symptoms that hospital staff brushed off as “normal,” according to her family’s lawsuit against a surgeon and two registered nurses.
Laura Belt, 46, died in May 2024 due to complications linked to a bowel perforation that resulted in sepsis — issues that were allegedly missed by staff at Decatur County Hospital, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Her family is suing Dr. Edwin Vincent Wehling and nurses Brandi Oesch and Tammy Roberts for medical malpractice at Decatur County Hospital, which is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The Iowa Board of Medicine has also charged Wehling with “professional incompetency” and practicing in a manner that is “harmful and detrimental to the public,” the outlet reported. A board hearing on the disciplinary charges is scheduled for September.
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Wehling operated on Belt, while Oesch and Roberts handled her recovery, after she came in for a hernia repair surgery at Decatur County Hospital, according to the lawsuit, Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.
After the surgery, Belt allegedly told staff she felt “very uncomfortable” and “very anxious and tearful” as she suffered from “constant drainage” of “significant amounts of feculent, brown liquid” pouring out of her incision site. Belt also allegedly had not had a bowel movement since the surgery, according to the outlet.
Belt was discharged from the hospital a week after the hernia operation. The incision site was still leaking more than a week after she was discharged, according to the complaint.
The woman texted images of the brown liquid to Roberts.
The brown liquid was determined to be stool, and the nurses assured her that this was nothing abnormal, according to the complaint.
“Consulted with Brandi, she states all is normal … Brandi stated incision will drain like this for at least a month,” Roberts texted Belt on May 9, 2024.
The day after the exchange with Roberts, Belt’s family says she had a video call with Oesch and showed her the brown fluid still pouring from the wound, but she was allegedly not told to seek emergency medical care.
On May 11, 2024, Belt was taken by ambulance to the Wayne County Hospital’s Emergency Department, where she was told her incision site was showing signs of dead, necrotic tissue along with “constant drainage” of stool, and she was diagnosed as being in septic shock in connection with an infection stemming from hernia repair, according to the lawsuit.
Two days later, Oesch allegedly added a back-charted entry into Belt’s electronic medical record at Decatur County Hospital, affirming she had the video call with Belt and indicated that the woman was crying and that fluid had poured out of her wound onto the bathroom floor during the call.
“This nurse advised I would call Dr. Wehling and advise. This nurse notified Dr. Wehling and he requested (the antibiotic) Bactrim to be started,” Oesch wrote, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit claims no Bactrim prescription was ever ordered.
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Belt died on May 15, 2024, and Wehling, Oesch and Roberts have all denied any wrongdoing.
Wehling has claimed that the cause of Belt’s injuries and complications “may have been a pre-existing medical condition and/or a subsequently occurring medical condition for which (he) is not responsible,” according to Iowa Capital Dispatch.
A trial has been scheduled for Aug. 23.