The family of the veteran will get $4.7 million dollars from the US government.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The United States government will have to pay an Arkansas veteran’s family millions of dollars. This comes after a former Veterans Health Care Systems of the Ozarks pathologist misdiagnosed this veteran along with many more.
The family of Jerry Kolpek will receive $4.7 million from the federal government for his misdiagnosis. The pathologist Robert Levy who misdiagnosed Kolpek and many other patients is currently serving 20 years behind bars.
U.S. Army Veteran Jerry Kolpek was a patient at the Veterans Health Care Systems of the Ozarks where his prostate cancer went undiagnosed for six years because of former chief of pathology, Robert Levy. He died on December 31, 2020, at the age of 83.
“It was actually one of his goals to try to live long enough to testify at the sentencing phase on his behalf. Unfortunately, he died three weeks prior to being able to do that. And his son Doug Kolpek came to Fayetteville and stepped into his sted,” said Matt Lindsay.
Lindsay is an attorney at the Odom Law Firm that tried this case. He says they are very happy with the outcome saying this is closure for Kolpek’s family.
“The testimony was that a first-year medical student could’ve caught the prostate cancer at its earliest stages. And so when you add that, just the loss in general because he was a tremendous husband and father, but to know that it was a loss that should have never happened. It had and continues to have a tremendous impact on the family,” he said.
Dr. Levy was fired in April 2018 after getting a DUI. He failed a field sobriety test during work hours. The case ended up being dismissed because his blood sample was clean. Levy was concealing his impairment with a drug called 2M-2B.
Lindsay says of the 33,000 cases Levy reviewed as a pathologist, he had 3,000 errors—that’s a 10% error rate. He says a normal error rate for a pathologist is less than one percent.
“He did it while intoxicated and it seemed to be that half the hospital knew about it. And so, beyond just getting justice and fair results for these veterans we again want to shed light on that above all, we have to take care of our finest,” he said.
This is just one of eight families the Odom Law Firm is representing who were misdiagnosed. Five of those eight patients have since died. Five of these cases have been settled including the case that was set to start trial next week.
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