Man’s cancer grows after medical center fails to share test results, attorney says
An Indiana couple has been awarded more than $25 million after a medical center failed to send the results of a blood test, leading to a husband’s delayed cancer diagnosis, officials said.
On Aug. 22, a Lake County jury awarded Valparaiso residents George “Tim” Yaros and his wife, LaVonne, $25.8 million in a medical malpractice trial against St. Mary Medical Center, court records show.
McClatchy News reached out to St. Mary’s attorney Aug. 28 for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Now 70, Yaros had blood work done in 2017 at St. Mary Medical Center that showed he had localized cancer, according to a news release from Allen Law Group, which represented the couple.
The medical center failed to send those results to the specialist who ordered the test, and Yaros’ cancer was not discovered for another 13 months, by which point it had progressed to Stage IV and spread to his spine and kidneys, the firm said in the release.
Yaros “bravely battled his cancer but he’ll need dialysis and lifetime treatment,” his attorneys said.
“The truth was that Tim Yaros was mistreated in the sense that he took a test that revealed he had cancer, but they didn’t give him the results or his specialist the results until it was too late,” attorney Ken Allen told WGN.
LaVonne Yaros said they “wanted to have their day in court and to prevent this from happening to another, younger patient,” according to the law firm.
Valparaiso is about a 150-mile drive northwest from Indianapolis.
This story was originally published August 28, 2024 at 1:04 PM with the headline "Man’s cancer grows after medical center fails to share test results, attorney says."
