Hospital Files Motion to Dismiss Dr. Paul Marik’s Landmark Case Seeking Emergency Order to Lift Hospital Ban on Lifesaving COVID-19 Medications
On Friday, November 12, 2021, Sentara Hospital System in Virginia submitted a motion to dismiss the complaint filed against it earlier in the week by Dr. Paul Marik—co-chief medical officer of the FLCCC, tenured professor, and the Director of the Intensive Care Unit at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. Dr. Marik filed suit seeking a temporary injunction to lift the ban Sentara Healthcare System had placed on a range of highly effective COVID-19 treatments used by Dr. Marik to save critically ill COVID-19 patients. These components, including IV vitamin C, dutasteride, fluvoxamine, finasteride, and ivermectin, had previously been successfully used—with the exception of ivermectin, the use of which Sentara never permitted —to reduce COVID deaths in the ICU by as much as 50 percent. The result of the prohibition has been a sharp increase in mortality at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
The hospital’s motion to dismiss Marik’s lawsuit rests on their claim that Dr. Marik has “lack of standing” to bring the lawsuit against the hospital. According to the hospital, “The alleged causes of action against Sentara, if any, reside with the patients in the hospital, not those patients’ attending physician.”
The hospital also asserted in its motion that Virginia’s Advance Directive Statute and/or the Health Care Decisions Act do not “afford the patient the ability to specifically direct or demand his or her course of treatment by a physician or hospital.” But Dr. Marik’s complaint argues that “Sentara’s prohibition of these medicines is causing needless deaths, because it violates patients’ rights to informed consent, and because it contravenes Virginia’s Health Care Decisions Act.”
Under Virginia law, Dr. Marik, as the “attending physician” of his patients in the ICU, is personally and legally responsible for the exercise of professional skill and judgement in determining what a patient under his care receives. Because Dr. Marik is prohibited from giving his patients medications that are potentially lifesaving—and have been demonstrated as such in peer-reviewed studies—he is forced to abandon his professional duty. His actions are regulated by the hospital in such a way that it causes him to violate the rights of his patients.
The hospital’s motion to dismiss or continue the hearing — scheduled for Thursday, November 18 at 1PM ET in Norfolk — also argues that Dr. Marik has lack of standing to bring the lawsuit because he has not been “injuriously affected” by the prohibition of the medications since he himself was not a patient who was denied “the alleged” lifesaving treatment.
Yet, if Dr. Marik were to violate the hospital’s prohibition, he would be subject to revocation of his hospital privileges. Furthermore, due to Sentara’s prohibition, he is the one who faces potential legal liability for failing to provide his patients with the medications which, in his professional judgment, had the capacity to save their lives. Therefore, Dr. Marik has solid standing to seek vindication of the rights of his patients and of himself as treating physician.
From October 25-31, 2021, Dr. Marik, in his role as the attending physician in the ICU, cared for seven critically ill patients. Because of the prohibition of the medications he wanted to use to save their lives, he was forced to watch helplessly as each patient grew increasingly ill. He was not permitted to discuss these lifesaving treatments with the patients or their families. In legal precedents cited by Dr. Marik’s legal team, patients have the right to informed consent—including the right to be informed of the existence of alternative treatments, if any.
Four of Dr. Marik’s patients died during that shift in the ICU. The remaining three were also likely to die as well.
Without the court’s immediate intervention, more patients will be denied their rights to choose lifesaving medicines that their attending physician considers appropriate for them. The prohibition of the medicines by Sentara also violates the duty of informed consent and the Commonwealth of Virginia’s ‘Right to Try’ statute.
Dr. Marik is asking the court to immediately restore his and his critically ill patients’ rights to discuss and decide to use FDA-approved, potentially life-saving medicines that are deemed medically necessary.
Follow the case at flccc.net.
ABOUT DR. MARIK
Dr. Paul Marik is one of the world’s leading critical care specialists. He is the author of over 500 published, peer-reviewed articles, eighty book chapters, and four books on critical care topics. His work hav\s been cited more than 44,000 times in peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Marik is a leading global authority on the pathophysiology and treatment of COVID-19—and is arguably the foremost COVID-19 critical care specialist alive. He has never previously been a plaintiff (or a defendant) in a legal proceeding. No patient in decades of practice has ever filed a complaint against him.
ABOUT THE FLCCC
Formed by leading critical care specialists in March 2020, at the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, the ‘Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance’ is now a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to developing highly effective treatment protocols to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 and to improve the outcomes for patients ill with the disease.
I appreciate FLCC physicians. Because of your organization I received an rx for Ivermectin to have on hand if I got covid. I am 64 y/0 and got covid about a month ago, I was extremely ill then started Ivermectin and the vitamin protocol recommended by FLCC. There was a noticeable improvement when I started this treatment. While I was still sick for two weeks I believe your organization kept me out of the hospital and possible saved my life. Thank you for all you do❤️ Julie Mcvicars.
This is the remail I sent to the Sentara Ethics Committee:
"To whom it may concern,
It is shocking that a doctor of Paul Marik's stature has to defend his right to uphold the oath he has taken to "first do no harm".
Dr. Marik's only "crime" is to prescribe safe, effective FDA approved, repurposed medications which have been shown to save lives during this Covid epidemic.
Sentara Hospital's actions to censure Dr. Marik have violated every standard of ethics that can be imagined.
As a result, you have forced Dr. Marik to legally challenge Sentara's Covid protocols, which have resulted in needless deaths.
Families of patients all over the United States have sued for the right to use these safe, repurposed medications and instead your Sentara responds with ineffective treatments like remdesevir which are ineffective, costly, and toxic.
Clearly the Big Pharma gravy train is more important than saving lives.
You have opened up a court battle which will go down in history. Sentara's greed and callousness in the face of Dr. Marik's sound medical advice will become known in much the same way as the court case "Brown vs. Board of Education", which challenged the endemic discrimination of the Jim Crow laws.
You have earned yourself a place in infamy as one of the bad guys. Congratulations.
Sincerely,
Margaret Collins (retired health care professional)