Cleveland law firm Peiffer Rosca Wolf Abdullah Carr & Kane (PRW) has asked Cuyahoga County Judge John O'Donnell to appoint an independent monitor to oversee what the law firm calls "the embryo-loss crisis" at University Hospitals Fertility Center.
They're also asking the judge to require the hospital to have the following:
- 24 hour staffing
- backup freezers
- backup generators in case power goes out
- alarms continuously monitored internally by the facility and externally by a third party to detect any temperature fluctuation
- an emergency preparedness plan in case of power outage, fire, or flood
PRW is representing several patients involved in the UH Fertility Center failure.
The hospital has taken responsibility for the failure that destroyed 4,000 eggs and embryos, impacting 950 families. They cited human error in that someone shut off the remote alarm monitor and the tank was in need of maintenance.
In a statement, the hospital responded saying:
"University Hospitals does not comment on pending litigation, but we are working alongside various regulatory and accrediting agencies since the incident and are addressing any issues identified by those agencies."
We will keep you posted as to the judge's decision in this case.