$11.9M Settlement For New Mom Injured Giving Birth In Hoboken Hospital

HOBOKEN, NJ — The family of a woman injured giving birth to her first child in Hoboken's hospital in 2020 was awarded an $11.9 million settlement Tuesday, according to court documents.

Estefania Mesa, now 32, has never come home from rehabilitation, and is in a "minimally conscious state," said her attorney, Sam Davis, on Wednesday.

The money will go into a trust to pay for her care in a nursing facility, into a trust for her daughter — Emma, now 4 — and to court costs.

On July 20, 2020, Mesa, nearly 40 weeks pregnant, went to Hoboken University Medical Center to deliver her daughter, according to the civil suit filed in Hudson County Superior Court in 2020. Because the fetal monitor showed the unborn child in distress, doctors decided she needed a Casearean section.

Mesa ended up having a heart attack during the procedure as a result of the anesthesiologist's errors, according to the settlement documents. The documents say doctors did not immediately recognize that Mesa was in distress.

Mesa spent five months in ICU in the hospital and was transferred on Nov. 5, 2020 to the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in Saddle Brook, where she remains to this day, her lawyers say.

The settlement order was approved by Superior Court Judge Joseph R. Turula on Tuesday.

Davis told Patch she will be transferred to a skilled nursing facility closer to her family once the money is received. Her fiance, Eduardo Argueta, lives with daughter Emma in Hudson County.

CarePoint will have to pay $10 million; anesthesiologist Selvia Zaklama will have to pay $900,000, and Hudson Anesthesiology Services will have to pay $1 million, according to the settlement documents.

The family's lawyers, Davis, Saperstein, and Salomon, said in settlement documents, "Ms. Mesa and her family were not only victims of Dr. Zaklama’s gross negligence and malpractice, but also of CarePoint Hospital’s system-wide failures that were permitted to persist amidst a culture of concealment and willful corporate ignorance and greed. While this case could have been litigated as one for simple medical malpractice, as this case progressed, it became clear that it was the Defendants’ collective deceitful and sordid practices and conduct are what ultimately gave rise to the conditions that allowed the events that transpired on July 20, 2020 to occur."

The documents said that CarePoint — which has suffered financial difficulties and is in the process of being taken over — made it difficult for them to obtain documents.

A CarePoint spokesperson declined to comment on the settlement Wednesday.

'Far From Just...Medical Malpractice'

The legal documents shed light on Mesa's current state.

"Ms. Mesa is still unable to verbally communicate, express her needs or concerns adequately, eat solid food or feed herself unassisted, walk, and go about the activities of daily living without total assistance," say the settlement documents. "Nursing staff feed her liquid nutrition through a tube in her abdominal wall. ... She is in a minimally conscious state as she can follow certain commands, track the movement of individuals within her room, and immediately recognize certain individuals such as [fiance Eduardo] Argueta, and Emma Argueta, her now four-year-old daughter."

The documents say anesthesiologist Selvia Zaklama should never have been working at the hospital, and claim that the doctor communicated so harshly with Mesa that a nurse spoke to her fiance about filing a complaint.

"Apart from Dr. Zaklama, all of the other healthcare professionals who were in O.R. 2, rendering care to Ms. Mesa testified at their depositions that they could not hear or see the Mindray DPM 7 Vital Sign Monitor ('Mindray DPM 7'), which would have alarmed in such a situation had it not been silenced by Dr. Zaklama," the settlement documents say.

"Ms. Mesa’s case is far from being just a case of tragic medical malpractice," the documents say. "The extensive discovery involved in this case led to a conclusion that CarePoint HUMC, through Defendant Hudson Anesthesiology Services, LLC allowed an anesthesiologist with a checkered history, questionable ethics and skills to stay on staff."

A GoFundMe for the family, set up by friends in 2020, drew nearly $70,000 and shows a photo of Estefania and Eduardo in happier times holding baby shoes for their future child.

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