Dying Army Vet With Prostate Cancer Awarded $2.5 Million In VA Malpractice Suit
Phoenix New TimesMar 07, 2017
Today, a federal judge in
Cooper is one of hundreds of veterans who suffered as a result of the Phoenix VA's long wait times, which became a national scandal several years ago after an investigation found that veterans were dying while waiting to get medical care.
He served in the army from 1989 to 2007 before being honorably discharged. He began experiencing abdominal pains in 2011, at the age of 43. For the better part of a year, he attempted to make an appointment with the
As the complaint for his lawsuit against the
Because of various and systemic problems with the
When Cooper finally got an appointment, he was seen by a nurse practitioner, not a physician. The nurse practitioner found that his prostate was enlarged and uneven, but didn't order follow-up tests or give him a referral to a urologist. There was nothing he could or should do about it, she said.
After a year passed, Cooper's symptoms hadn't gotten any better. He returned to the
When the results came back, Cooper was informed that he had advanced Stage 4 prostate cancer. It was both incurable and terminal, he was told. His doctor advised him to seek hospice care. Instead, he found a private doctor, who performed a radical prostatectomy.
That and other aggressive surgical interventions have bought him time. But Cooper currently has less than five years to live, Fox 10 reports.
In court, his attorneys argued that his illness would have not have progressed to such an advanced stage if it had been diagnosed back when he first began experiencing symptoms.
The judge agreed, awarding Cooper
In a press conference outside the courtroom, Cooper told Fox 10 that the money didn't really matter.
"They could've made a
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