Cornish man sues pharmacies and hospital after wife dies because she couldn’t get medication that could save her life

CORNISH — When Lynn Jenkins learned she was pregnant in late August 2022, she and her husband Stephen Jenkins were ready to have their first child.

They had lived in their home nestled in the Cornish hills for a few years with their two dogs. Lynn, 28, worked 12-hour shifts in Poland Spring. At home, they raised chickens and rabbits.

“What was important to me was making sure we had a home. And I wanted to make sure we were debt free. I wanted to make sure that, for example, when we had a child, that would be our priority,” said Stephen Jenkins, 31.

At first there were concerns about the pregnancy. Lynn suffered from a genetic blood clotting disorder. The blood thinner she relied on wasn’t safe for pregnant women, but her doctor assured her she could take other medications, Jenkins said.

Two weeks later, Lynn died from a blood clot in her lungs – the worst possible outcome for her condition if left untreated.

Her husband is now suing Southern Maine Health Care, Walgreens and CVS for wrongful death and medical malpractice. He filed a civil suit in York County Superior Court this month.

The lawsuit alleges that his doctor at SMHC wrote a 30-day prescription that no one could actually fill for an entire month; and pharmacies failed to provide him with life-saving emergency medication when that prescription failed – despite the Jenkinses’ repeated pleas for help.

Spokespeople for CVS and Walgreens declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

Joshua Hadiaris, an attorney for SMHC, said Thursday evening that he could not respond to the specific allegations in Jenkins’ complaint due to patient confidentiality concerns.

But he said the hospital denies “any allegations of negligence or wrongdoing” and “intends to vigorously defend its case.”

Stephen’s attorney, Taylor Asen, said Lynn’s death represents a larger problem within the health care industry; Doctors, pharmacists and their employers failed to respond to urgent but simple calls from a young pregnant woman with a life-threatening illness.

“She called Walgreens and CVS multiple times throughout the day,” Asen said. “No one helped her and it’s a shame.”

LYNN AND STEPHEN

Lynn grew up in Biddeford and attended Biddeford High School, where she played volleyball and graduated in 2012.

She had two younger siblings whom she adored.

“Lynn would take them doing all sorts of things,” Stephen said. “Mini golf, trips to the beach, buy as many as she can on their birthdays. That’s all that interested him, these children.

She and Stephen began dating after graduating from high school. He had attended Thornton Academy in Saco.

They moved in together about a year later and married on Boxing Day 2013.

But around the same time, Lynn learned she had a genetic bleeding disorder. Stephen said she was hospitalized when she was 18 for a clot, a traumatic event that frightened Lynn. She was afraid of the consequences of the illness on her future life.

It turned out that with the right blood thinning medication, things weren’t that different. Over the next decade, she and Stephen lived an adventurous life across the country, living in Kansas while he was in the military and briefly in Florida before returning home to Maine.

They spent time with Lynn’s family before finding their own apartment in Biddeford and eventually bought a house in Cornish in 2020. When they weren’t working, Stephen took Lynn fishing in his little boat. Sometimes they went out together, other times they stayed home and she watched crime shows.

“I think the hardest part I realize is that I have lived – up until this point – what I would consider a fairy tale, perfect life,” Stephen said. “I have the person who, when I see her, I can taste the next 60 years of my life on your lips. …I know this is what I want, and then it’s like everything I wrote for my future is gone.

THE PRESCRIPTION

As soon as Lynn found out she was pregnant, she consulted her doctor.

On September 1, 2022, Dr. Lillian Conover of Southern Maine Health Care prescribed Lynn one month of enoxaparin to replace the medication she was taking before her pregnancy, according to the lawsuit.

Enoxaparin comes in pre-filled syringes of different sizes. Conover told Lynn to take half in the morning and half in the evening. But the syringes automatically lock after one use. They cannot be taken twice, the lawsuit states.

Rachell Pogg, a pharmacist at the Cornish Walgreens, noticed this while reviewing Lynn’s prescription, according to the complaint. Pogg knew enoxaparin was available in smaller syringes, but she never called Conover to suggest a new prescription. Instead, she told Lynn to waste half and come back in a few weeks when the syringes ran out.

Neither Pogg nor Conover are defendants in the lawsuit.

But when Lynn requested a refill on September 15, the complaint alleges she received an automated voice message saying the prescription had been delayed “due to an insurance issue that we are still working through.”

“In reality, it is likely that no human being employed by Walgreens knew that Lynn’s prescription had been delayed, meaning that no one at Walgreens was ‘working on’ the problem,” the complaint states.

According to the complaint, Pogg later said she was never aware of the delay and that if she had known, she would have used Walgreen’s emergency policy, which allows pharmacists to give people multiple days of medication in case of emergency.

With only one dose left, Lynn tried the Biddeford CVS. An SMHC on-call doctor wrote Lynn a one-week prescription for a similar medication at the request of an SMHC medical assistant who Lynn contacted, but CVS said it was out of stock, the report says. trial.

But CVS didn’t tell Lynn until the next morning, a Saturday, and “made no attempt to help Lynn” over the weekend, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit alleges that Conover asked a physician’s assistant to order a new prescription after consulting Lynn’s insurance, which suggested smaller syringes, but CVS was unable to send it to Lynn’s home until September 23 .

CVS eventually told Lynn to go get medicine from the hospital. She went without medication for four days before she was able to get some on September 20.

Then, on the morning of September 22, as she and Stephen prepared for one of her first pregnancy exams, Lynn collapsed. She died at the hospital and the medical examiner later determined that the cause of her death was a bilateral pulmonary embolism.

RESPONSIBILITY

Stephen remembers yelling at the 911 operator. He said he realized as soon as he fell what had happened, but he felt like no one listened or acted soon enough.

“I was trying to explain to them, because at this point I’m sure what’s going on,” he recalls, “because I have enough information behind on her symptoms, what she’s doing in front me right now and the fact that she hasn’t taken her medication for four days.

Two years later, he still feels that he and his wife were not heard by the healthcare system. He said he was filing his complaint against SMHC and the pharmaceutical companies to seek accountability.

Stephen said he was lucky to have had the time and space to grieve and adjust to life without Lynn – even though there are still signs of her throughout their house . His photos hang on the wall, opposite a pair of paintings they made during a meeting at the “paint and sip” bar in Portland.

The chicken coop that Stephen built for their chickens appears empty at the edge of their yard. His dog, Riley, trots around where Stephen has started clearing the trees to get a better view of the mountains.

What happened to Lynn still bothers him. He said he was suing.

“All I can think is I knew someone (messed up),” he said. “And I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to stop until I get justice for this,’ so I kept at it.”

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