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THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2008
BJC officials respond to lawsuit
State's statistical register goes online
Attorneys for BJC Medical
Center, answering a malpractice
suit filed against it and former sur
geon Dr. Keith Ash, say the medi
cal center did not contribute to or
cause any of the alleged damages
to the four plaintiffs.
The medical center seeks a jury
trial and an assessment of costs
against the plaintiffs.
The document was filed last
week in response to a suit filed by
Stephanie Floyd, Karen Hunter,
Billy Ray Hawkes and Debra Kraft
seeking actual and punitive dam
ages for alleged malpractice by
Ash.
The suit was filed June 10 in the
Superior Court of Jackson County.
Ash resigned as BJC’s surgeon
June 9.
The primary allegations of the
suit were against Ash; BJC was
involved it its capacity as the insti
tution that allowed Ash to per
form surgery. The plaintiffs allege
that the medical center failed to
do its due diligence in check
ing Ash’s background and provid
ing him staff privileges. They also
allege that the facility engaged
in “racketeering” by supporting
Ash and Ash’s Commerce Surgical
Associates.
The hospital’s attorneys denied
all of those charges in a 35-page
paragraph-by-paragraph response
to the lawsuit. As for the allega
tions pertaining to Ash, his work
on the plaintiffs and their diagno
ses, the response was, in effect,
that the hospital was not in a posi
tion to know whether the allega
tions are true or false.
Specifically though, the medical
center denied that it began recruit
ing Ash in early 2003, that Dr.
Ash was the only general surgeon
on staff, that he continues to do
surgery at BJC, that the medical
center was in a financial deficit
for several years prior to Dr. Ash’s
arrival, that he was the reason the
medical center’s financial condi
tion turned around, that the medi
cal center promotes him and his
practice, that he “at times will
perform five or more general anes
thesia cases per surgical day,” and
that the medical center and Dr. Ash
were in a “joint venture.”
The suit suggests that Ash
removed Floyd’s gallbladder
unnecessarily and performed a
Nissen fundoplication surgery
for reflux during which she suf
fered a perforated stomach and
after which complications arose
for which she was transferred to
Emory University Hospital where
she was a patient for two weeks.
She seeks recovery of $282,804
in costs.
In a fundoplication, the upper
part of the stomach is wrapped
around the esophagus, preventing
Maysville officials to hold
out-of-town meeting, retreat
The Maysville City Council will have a retreat at Unicoi State Park and
Lodge on Saturday, July 26, to discuss the 2008-2009 budget and future
SPLOST projects.
The meeting will be held in the board room at the Lodge from 10 a.m. to
noon and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
The Banks County News —
your weekly source
for news and sports
Come See....
Arts and Antiques Festival
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August 2 & 3
Exit 149 South - next to Outback Steakhouse
Featuring Potter Holly Williams and
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Raku demonstrations only on Saturday.
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the reflux of acid from the stom
ach and the sliding of the upper
part of the stomach through the
gap in the diaphragm.
The suit also alleges that Ash
recommended and performed the
Nissen fundoplication on Hunter,
after which she had difficulty swal
lowing and required further surgery
to relieve the problem. Her medi
cal bills were put at $133,195.
Hawkes claimed his stomach
was perforated during the Nissen
fundoplication surgery, and he
ended up at the Medical College
of Georgia Hospital where he had
“multiple surgeries to repair the
damage to his GI tract and attempt
to rid him of infection.” His bills,
including almost two months in the
hospital, were put at $436,443.
Kraft’s complaint is that she con
sented for an operation to repair
a ventral hernia, but after sur
gery had the same hernia. The suit
alleges that Ash “did not operate at
the site” of her hernia, rather that
he performed surgery “immedi
ately superior to Ms. Kraft’s umbi
licus,” which amounted to surgery
“at a site to which she had not
consented.” The complaint did not
list damages, saying they “are not
known at this time.” It considers
the operation to constitute “bat
tery.”
Curious about how many votes
George Busbee received when
he ran for governor in 1974?
Wondering how many times
Mickey Mouse has been written in
as a candidate for office?
Answers to those questions and
a plethora of others are available
via computer now that the Georgia
Official and Statistical Register is
available online.
It contains information not easily
accessible elsewhere for today’s
historians. The register is the
main source of election statistics
for the state.
Its content and length have var
ied over the years of its publi
cation (1923 -1990), though in
general the register has provided
information on categories such as:
state executive offices, boards and
commissions; the state legislature
and legislators, including short
biographies with photos; elections;
the state judiciary; Georgia’s fed
eral representation; the University
System of Georgia; county officers
and data; and miscellaneous (e.g.
flag, song, state symbols, poets
laureate).
The electronic version was digi
tized by the Digital Library of
Georgia from the print volumes,
which are available in the UGA
main library Georgia government
documents collection. Users are
able to search across the text of all
the volumes (about 28,000 pages).
The register can be accessed at
http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/statreg-
ister.
“The register has become an his
torical resource of particular inter
est to genealogists, but it also lists,
for example, all the banks, public
libraries and newspapers in each
county and the poets laureates for
the state,” said Susan Tuggle, a ref
erence librarian who coordinates
the Georgia government publica
tions site in the Digital Library
of Georgia. “It cumulates elected
officials so you can see who was
in office at a given time.”
Compiled every two years by
the Georgia Archives (formerly
the Department of Archives and
History), it was not a handbook
that explained the workings of the
state government for the uniniti
ated, but rather a kind of direc
tory or state of the state with a
concentration on the officials who
guided it.
Legislator and other official biog
raphies included photos beginning
in 1951.
The amount of information
was reducing starting with the
1979-1980 volume and the pro
jected ended with the 1989-1990
volume.
Post-1990 information is best
obtained from state govern
ment web sites and the Georgia
Government Publications database
at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/ggp.
€all 706-367-5233 to subscribe to
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