Teregeyo adds 2 doctors to her suit for left knee, leg infections

Former representative Ana S. Teregeyo has added two doctors to her lawsuit that accuses the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. of negligence that resulted in her left knee and leg becoming infected, necessitating five more surgeries and an artificial knee replacement.

Teregeyo’s original lawsuit named CHCC, chief executive officer Esther L. Muna, and some medical staff officers as defendants. In her amended complaint, the additional defendants are Dr. Greg Kotheimer and Dr. Sherleen Osmand.

Teregeyo said Kotheimer is the acting chief executive officer for CHCC, while Osmand is the acting director of Medical Affairs for CHCC.

Teregeyo said CHCC, by way of Kotheimer, Osmand, and other officers, “failed to act in a manner set forth in the CHCC hospital bylaws, thus denying her orthopedic surgeon doctor the ability to care for her left knee and leg during her post-operative care recovery.”

In a complaint she filed in Superior Court without a lawyer, Teregeyo is demanding an unspecified amount of damages for pain and suffering, mental anguish, and expenses.

Teregeyo said she was admitted to the Commonwealth Health Center on Nov. 2, 2013, because of a shattered tibia bone. She was treated by Dr. Grant Walker, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon licensed by the CNMI to practice medicine.

Teregeyo was released on Nov. 27, 2013, and was told to follow up in the hospital’s orthopedic clinic.

She said she saw Ben Hochhalter, an orthopedic physician assistant, during her follow up appointment at the orthopedic clinic on Dec. 19, 2013.

Teregeyo claims that Hochhalter was unsupervised by an orthopedic surgeon when he saw her in subsequent visits. She said Hochhalter took out the post-operative sutures too early, resulting in the gap in the incision to go untreated. Hochhalter also allegedly failed to take an x-ray of her leg for three months while she was complaining that her leg was starting to angulate as an infection continued eating away at the bone below that included her left knee.

Teregeyo said the infection of her knee necessitated six surgeries, including a full artificial replacement of her knee. She was confined to a wheelchair for 18 months.

Teregeyo said she had to be treated in the U.S. mainland for 10 months, while she received five additional surgeries at the University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.