Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Baker City announced on Thursday, June 22, 2023, that it would be closing the hospital's birth center. Saint Alphonsus Health System, which includes hospitals in Baker City, Ontario, Nampa and Boise, is owned by Trinity Health of Michigan, a nonprofit Catholic health system that operates 92 hospitals in 22 states.

BAKER CITY — A Baker City woman has filed a lawsuit against Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Baker City and a former surgeon seeking up to $10 million in damages for injuries she suffered due to an infection following ankle surgery in the spring of 2020.

Nancy Wilson filed the malpractice suit on Friday, April 22, in Baker County Circuit Court. The defendants are Saint Alphonsus and Dr. Eric Sandefur, who announced in December 2020 that he would “explore new opportunities in health care” and would no longer see patients.

Wilson is represented by Scott Levin, a Portland attorney.

Mark Snider, a spokesperson for the Saint Alphonsus Health Care System in Boise, said the company does not comment on litigation.

According to the lawsuit, Wilson broke her right ankle on April 21, 2020, when a wheel broke on her walker/wheelchair. She was taken to the emergency room at the Baker City hospital, where she was diagnosed with a fractured ankle.

Sandefur performed surgery on Wilson’s ankle on April 22, 2020, and a second surgery on May 7, 2020, according to the lawsuit.

Wilson contends that Sandefur failed to take action to deal with her infected surgical incision at multiple follow-up visits. According to the lawsuit, Wilson’s home nurse, as well as her husband and son, told Sandefur that the incision was not healing properly.

On July 9, 2020, Sandefur, during an exam, noted that the plate and screws he placed in Wilson’s ankle during the surgery were exposed. He ordered infection tests, which were positive, according to the lawsuit.

On July 16, 2020, Wilson was referred to the emergency room at Saint Alphonsus in Baker City by her primary care provider. She was then taken by ambulance to Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Boise for “emergency repair surgery of the open and infected surgical wound,” according to the lawsuit.

The metal hardware Sandefur had installed was removed, and Wilson was in the hospital until Aug. 7, 2020, according to the lawsuit.

The infection had spread to her bones, resulting in removal of infected bone that left her “permanently disabled,” according to the lawsuit.

“As a result of the non-healing surgical wound and subsequent infection, Plaintiff was completely bedridden for the next year and will never again regain her ability to ambulate normally,” the lawsuit states.

Wilson is asking for a jury trial.

According to the lawsuit, economic damages would be determined by a jury at trial, with the amount “not expected to exceed $2 million.”

Wilson is also seeking noneconomic damages not to exceed $8 million.

Another malpractice lawsuit with Sandefur and Saint Alphonsus-Baker City as defendants is pending, with a trial set to start Sept. 6, 2022, in Baker County Circuit Court.

Mark and Lynne Brown of Union County filed the suit on Feb. 11, 2021, claiming Mark Brown lost mobility in his right leg as a result of the defendants’ negligence in a total knee replacement surgery that Sandefur performed on Oct. 16, 2018, at the Baker City hospital.

The Browns are seeking up to $26 million in damages — up to $10 million in economic damages for complications after the surgery and up to $16 million in noneconomic damages.

Both the Browns’ lawsuit, and Wilson’s complaint, contend that Saint Alphonsus should have known that Sandefur “had a history of surgical outcomes that resulted in the development of infections.”

A $5.2 million lawsuit filed in September 2020 accused Sandefur, Saint Alphonsus-Baker City, and Veronica Crowder, a physician assistant who worked with Sandefur, of negligence in treating 6-year-old Avery Martin’s fractured arm in May 2018.

That lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the complaint can’t be refiled, and without any costs to either side, in 2021, after the parties agreed to settle the case, according to court records.