On April 27, a jury found that a hospital and doctors weren’t responsible for the death of a newborn baby. On Feb. 25, 2006, Yetta Martinez gave birth to a girl, Evangeline, at Covenant Medical Center in Lubbock. The infant was discharged from the hospital two days later, but she died the next day. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be strep pneumoniae. Martinez and her husband blamed Covenant and Drs. Philip Burgette and Diana McIntire. The couple alleged Covenant and Burgette failed to administer prophylactic antibiotics to Martinez when she presented to the hospital with possible strep pneumoniae symptoms the day before Evangeline’s birth. They also contended that McIntire failed to treat Evangeline for a fever prior to her discharge. The defendants argued that Martinez’s labor proceeded too quickly for antibiotics to be administered and that the baby’s temperature was normal when she left the hospital.
Martinez, et al. v. Covenant Health Systems Inc., et al., No. 2008-543,326
