Suit Moves Forward

A lawsuit filed in 1996 over hospital intepreters is still not settled. It was 14 years ago that Staten Island University Hospital was challenged in a New York court by a the family of a deaf patient seeking $10 million in damages. Robert Loeffler was supposed to undergo heart surgery at the hospital but administrators were not able to provide him with an interpreter, so after two weeks his children tried to translate the complicated medical terms to him. Although the hospital now provides interpreters for deaf patients, the Loeffler case may finally go to trial after more than a decade. A federal appellate court has put it back on the docket although no date has been set. A Brooklyn federal court had previously dismissed the claims following Loeffler's death in 2000.