When Melissa Williams looks down at her ruined right hand, all she sees is loss.
Two fingers and part of her palm have been amputated.
Gone, too, is her financial security. Williams has been unable to work regularly since 2017, when she entered a Steward Health Care hospital in Melbourne, Fla., for a common operation, and a botched IV insertion led to searing pain and a host of complications that continue today. Williams sued Steward in 2019 for what seemed an egregious case of malpractice.
Five years later, and facing $500,000 in medical bills, she hasn’t seen a dollar from the hospital chain.