Justice on hold for grieving mom who says Steward Health put profit before patient care

A grieving mother is looking for justice for her 4-year-old daughter who died after being rushed to a Steward Health Care hospital, but justice is on hold in the wake of the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

Tabatha Toy’s heart is forever broken. She says she’ll never get over the loss of her daughter, Tina, who died in March 2016 after being rushed to the emergency room at Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton.  Tina and her identical twin Jasmine were born with Down Syndrome but the little girls were thriving.

Toy brought Tina to the doctor because she wasn’t feeling well – she suffered a seizure and was in need of help.

“They took away my child. I can’t ever get her back. This is something I’ll feel for the rest of my life," Toy said.

Tina’s medical records show she arrived at the Good Samaritan emergency room at 4:09 p.m. on March 25, 2016. She had a high fever, elevated heart rate, strep and had suffered a seizure. Her oxygen levels were dropping and she had swelling in her brain. 

Toy told us her daughter was having trouble breathing and after she was initially examined and given medication, the hospital staff ignored them.  She said her daughter would have an episode where her chest would lift off the bed that would trigger a monitor alarm but staff would just shut off the alarm and walk away.  

“I feel like we were just put to the side and forgot about. They didn’t either have time or whether they were too busy. I felt they didn’t care about my daughter,” Toy said.

The hospital’s policy at the time was to transfer any child under the age of 8 in need of inpatient care expeditiously to another hospital and to monitor the child closely while in the emergency room.

Tina’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Good Samaritan back in 2019 but the case has been delayed multiple times. 

Good Samaritan is a Steward Health Care facility.  The NBC10 Boston Investigators have discovered it’s one of a few hundred open civil cases against Steward and its affiliates filed in the past 10 years.  They include 12 wrongful death cases, medical malpractice cases, fraud and business-related lawsuits for non-payment of services, goods and rent.  All of the cases are on hold in the wake of Steward’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Attorney Kathryn Wickenheiser, who represents the Toy family said she is frustrated.

“This is a case that should have been resolved and this family should have answers and closure and I don’t know if that’s possible for them now.”

Wickenheiser said the staff in the emergency room at Good Samaritan that day back in 2016 was stretched thin and did little to help.

“These communities rely on Steward medical group and the disservice and what they’re doing to this community is just heartbreaking and it’s been building. And they’ve known it for a long time and they let it happen,” she said.

According to the lawsuit, the 4-year-old stopped breathing multiple times at Good Samaritan. The doctor said that could be because Tina’s tongue was larger than normal due to Down Syndrome and it may be falling back into her airway. That same doctor wrote that Tina was stable and finally ordered a transfer but it was too late. She was rushed to a Boston hospital three hours after being admitted to Good Samaritan. Tina had suffered major brain damage and was taken off life support the next day.  Her official cause of death was a viral upper respiratory infection complicated by MRSA pneumonia.

Toy is left with a hole in her heart. The grief is also deep for Tina’s twin Jasmine-who lost her playmate and best friend. Tabatha said she tells Jasmine that Tina loves her and is always watching over her.

“I want closure, I just want them to be held accountable for what they’ve done so they can’t hurt anybody anymore," she told NBC10 Boston.

Tina’s case was set for mediation in September.  Her lawyer fears her family will never get justice. Steward denies the allegations in Tina’s case. A spokesperson had no comment on any of the civil cases impacted by the bankruptcy.

Get updates on what's happening in Boston to your inbox. Sign up for our News Headlines newsletter.