FORT SMITH - A Fort Smith woman who testified before a U.S. House of Representatives veterans subcommittee last fall about the dangers of over-prescribing pain medication for veterans has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the United States and a Fayetteville Veterans Affairs doctor over the 2011 death of her husband.
An attorney representing Kimberly Stowe Green wrote in a complaint filed in Fort Smith on Tuesday that the federal government and Fayetteville VA Medical Center’s Dr. Vincent Runnels negligently and wrongfully caused the death of 43-year-old Army veteran Ricky Wayne Green on Oct. 29, 2011.
Runnels was not available for comment Friday. A staff member at his clinic in Fayetteville said he was out of town.
Kimberly Green, a 21-year Air Force veteran, testified in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 10 before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Health, in a hearing titled “Between Peril and Promise: Facing the Dangers of VA’s Skyrocketing Use of Prescription Painkillers to Treat Veterans,” according to the House website.
She was among nine veterans, veterans’ widows, doctors and VA officials who testified during the hearing.
According to a transcript of her testimony, Kimberly Green said her husband, a 23-year Army veteran who served in Operation DesertStorm, suffered from chronic back pain and was prescribed oxycodone, hydrocodone, Valium, Ambien, Zoloft, gabapentin and tramadol.
“My husband, Ricky Green, followed the orders of his VA doctors in taking these pain medications. And these pain medications led to his death,” she told the subcommittee.
The lawsuit says she and her two sons have suffered from the loss of Ricky Green. She has lost his companionship, and the family lost his support, benefits, inheritance and earning capacity. They are asking for a jury trial and damages from Runnels and the government.
The suit alleges that Runnels prescribed a cocktail of pain medications in addition to several other medicines for Ricky Green that, combined with his sleep apnea, caused him to die in his sleep.
A passage from an Arkansas medical examiner’s autopsy report included in the federal civil complaint concludes that because of the narcotic effects of the drugs, Ricky Green could not awaken when the sleep apnea stopped his breathing.
According to the lawsuit, Ricky Green had three lower back surgeries, one in 1999 and two in 2011. He also was diagnosed with sleep apnea in February 2011. He was prescribed medication for chronic pain.
In September 2011, the suit states, he complained to a VA social worker that he thought his medications were being inappropriately prescribed, that he didn’t take all the medications prescribed and would like to take less.
On Oct. 25, 2011, he underwent lumbar spine surgery at Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville and was expected to stay in the hospital three to five days, the suit states.
He was discharged the next day and went to Runnels for a review of his medications. The lawsuit includes notes from Runnels in which he listed 10 prescriptions that included diazepam, etodolac, gabapentin and hydrocodone, all for pain.
Not listed but prescribed for and filled by Ricky Green that day was oxycodone, the lawsuit states. The autopsy report noted that the level of oxycodone in his system was greater than therapeutic levels and considered in some medical literature as in the toxic range.
In her testimony before the House subcommittee, Kimberly Green said the VA and the Department of Defense set guidelines for treatment of veterans with chronic pain.
According to those guidelines, she said, doctors were to consider the chance of accidental or suicidal overdoses when prescribing pain medications. And the guidelines warn that the interaction of multiple pain medications could cause death.
She also said guidelines contain a section requiring doctors to take special care in prescribing pain medications for patients with sleep apnea.
She testified that Ricky Green was entitled to the quality of care set out in the guidelines, but that the guidelines have not been fully implemented or followed.
“And our veterans are suffering the consequences,” she said.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 12/28/2013