By MATTHEW SNOWBALL
Los Alamos
Until now, I have sat quietly on the sidelines watching the discussion of the healthcare provider crisis in this state play out on social media and the news. I’ve watched as lawmakers tell us they have the ‘golden ticket’ solution to a crisis that has been building for decades, and all we have to do is ram through a few bills with less than 4 weeks of debate. I have felt more and more anxious, with an internal dialogue that grows in disgust and even anger while watching as the pleas of victims of medical malpractice are drowned out by the shouting on all sides.
Malpractice lawyers have been vilified and called names for delivering the only thing that victims hope for: some kind of justice for the loss of their loved ones due to medical malpractice. If you’re upset by the growing damages in medical malpractice cases, remember that a jury or judge, not lawyers or victims, decide on the compensation amount to provide these victims once they’ve proven their case. Growing compensation could indicate that malpractice events are growing more egregious, not just more common.
Many people in Los Alamos probably recognize my name. But I would wager more of you knew my late wife, Sara Snowball. She was a beloved teacher at Pinon Elementary School who dedicated her entire life to her students and children. She re-invested much of her pay and all of her heart into making her classroom a place where every student could learn. She had a gift for working with students who struggled with behavioral and emotional issues. She was and is loved by many. She was the life of the party and gave everything she had to her students at school, and our daughter at home.
Sara died 12 hours after giving birth to our second child on May 20, 2021, and I watched, completely and utterly broken as the town and her students wept with disbelief. The worst thing I have ever had to do was tell our daughter, who was only 5 years old at the time, that her best friend wasn’t coming home. The biting sting of pain crossing her face and the scream of realization as I struggled to vocalize that her whole world had just been shattered will haunt me forever. I will do anything in my power to keep another father from having to experience that.
Until today, only our family and closest friends knew that she died because she was let down by the doctors and hospital that we trusted to care for her. This is not a subject I enjoy opining on; however, I reached a breaking point when my offer to speak privately with my representative about HB99 went totally ignored. The contempt shown for victims of medical malpractice is shameful, and the limits HB99 places on victims’ abilities to seek justice will only hurt future victims. While I pray none of you reading this ever have to call yourself a victim of malpractice, I can assure you that if you do, being told that the state has put a price on what your loved one was worth regardless of the circumstances is one of the most disgusting things you will hear.
In order to get answers about what led to Sara’s death, our family was forced to file a lawsuit, and it has taken years to fight through the hospital’s attempts to obscure the events of that night. What became immediately clear to me was the only thing the hospital involved in our case cared about was how much this would cost them monetarily. The more we have learned, the more shocking and heartbreaking the answers have become. Sara and our family were failed by the hospital and those entrusted with her care every single step of the way.
As a victim of medical malpractice, I cannot support HB99, and I urge lawmakers to consider bills to improve the healthcare environment by finding ways to attract good doctors and healthcare companies, force healthcare companies to deal with bad actors, bring more transparency to the market, and most importantly, do not force victims and their families to pay the price.