Jailed Doc’s Patients Sue Govt.

Jailed Doc’s Patients to Sue Government.; Roxana Hegeman; Associated Press; 2008-02-11. Source.

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Patients of a physician who is charged with running a “pill mill” linked to 56 overdose deaths plan to sue the government, claiming it has put patients in mortal danger and created a public health disaster by prosecuting the doctor.

The lawsuit, which names Attorney General Michael Mukasey, U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren, the state of Kansas and the Kansas Board of Healing Arts as defendants, was to be filed Tuesday by the New Mexico-based Pain Relief Network on behalf of the patients of Dr. Stephen Schneider.

Schneider and his wife, nurse Linda Schneider, were indicted in December on federal charges including conspiracy, unlawful distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death, health care fraud, illegal money transactions, and money laundering.

The state last month suspended Schneider’s license to practice, which forced him to close his Haysville clinic.

The group’s lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, seeks an emergency temporary restraining order. [PRN] contends the Board of Healing Arts and a Kansas district court ignored the danger to 1,000 medically vulnerable patients who have been forcibly abandoned and must now fend for themselves. The group contends pain is a significant cause of death, including progressive brain damage.

“Withdrawal for people who are sick is catastrophic,” Siobhan Reynolds, president of the Pain Relief Network.

Patients held a candlelight vigil Monday night outside Wesley Medical Center, where one of Schneider’s former patients was hospitalized four days after she ran out of prescription painkillers. The hospital would say only that she was stable.

“She was lying in an ICU bed crumpled up, incoherent. … She was in a very weakened state. She looked very, very ill,” said Reynolds, who visited Collins at the hospital over the weekend.

Jim Cross, spokesman for Melgren’s office, said officials there haven’t seen the lawsuit and couldn’t comment on it. The Kansas Board of Healing Arts did not immediately respond to an after-hours call Monday seeking comment.

In its indictment, the government links Schneider’s clinic to the deaths of 56 patients, although Schneider and his wife are charged with directly causing only four deaths and contributing to the deaths of 11 others. Prosecutors contend that Schneider wrote unlawful prescriptions for narcotic painkillers, muscle relaxers and other drugs, and that the clinic submitted fraudulent claims to health care benefit programs.

The Pain Relief Network contends that the suspension of Schneider’s license served no legitimate government interest but harmed his patients because it forced the closure of his clinic. Since Schneider’s arrest, other doctors have been reluctant to take on his patients, the group said.

The group seeks an emergency order forcing the Board of Healing Arts to restore Schneider’s medical license. It also seeks to restrain the Justice Department from harassing a new clinic to be opened under a different doctor, Dr. Joseph M. Sack, at Schneider’s now-shuttered Haysville facility.

The group wants an injunction against the Justice Department prohibiting it from confiscating patient files or taking any other actions to impede its treatment of patients in severe pain. It also asks that prosecutors return to the clinic patient files taken in what the group alleges is a violation of federal law.

The lawsuit also asks the court to appoint a special master to oversee the reopened clinic’s financial operations to protect it from charges of money laundering.

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