A Michigan neurosurgeon has filed a federal lawsuit accusing a Flint hospital of retaliating against him after he raised serious concerns about patient safety following the death of a 12-month-old child.
Dr. Sudesh Ebenezer alleges that Hurley Medical Center removed him from its Neurosurgery Trauma Panel and call schedule after he voiced alarm over what he described as grave procedural failures that led to the infant’s death in December 2022.
According to the lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Ebenezer was an independent contractor through Shah Practice Group at the Insight Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience, which held a contract with the publicly funded Hurley Medical Center. The suit claims that after the incident, the hospital’s actions resulted in a breach of that agreement, slashing Ebenezer’s income “by more than sixteen times” and causing significant financial and reputational harm.
The complaint recounts that on the evening of December 9, 2022, Ebenezer was called to treat a 12-month-old patient with a traumatic head injury. As he prepared for surgery, Hurley’s trauma staff allegedly told him the procedure was canceled because the child had been transferred to another hospital. “In reality, the child was still at Hurley — staff had simply lost track of the patient,” the lawsuit states.
Ebenezer claims he was alarmed to discover that routine diagnostic tests and radiological evaluations had not been performed, delaying his ability to operate. The complaint alleges that hospital staff failed to obtain a CT scan, failed to check the child’s blood clotting levels, did not correct serious coagulation issues or high pCO2 levels, and did not obtain chest imaging in a timely manner. The child died the following day, on December 10, 2022.
Between December 9 and 10, Ebenezer says he repeatedly raised his concerns with members of Hurley’s trauma team and other staff about patient safety and quality of care. Instead of addressing those issues, he claims, the hospital retaliated by blaming him for the tragedy “to silence his complaints and protect its own employees.”
The lawsuit accuses Hurley Medical Center of violating Ebenezer’s First Amendment rights and interfering with his business relationship with Shah Practice Group. Days after the incident, Ebenezer received a letter from Hurley’s trauma medical director criticizing the “timeliness” of his response and his “engagement in the care of a patient as the on-call neurosurgeon,” which the hospital claimed raised patient safety concerns.
Ebenezer is seeking compensatory damages for lost income and professional harm, as well as injunctive relief to address what he describes as wrongful retaliation.
Hurley Medical Center did not respond to requests for comment.