THE ACCOUNTABILITY SERIES: Shining the Light on Brick Wall Systems, Part 1
a.k.a. - The Holding-OhioHealth-Hospital-Accountable Series
The Accountability Series is a call for change — a public record and a reminder that patients deserve to be heard. Healthcare accountability should be standard, not a battle that injured patients and their families are forced to fight, only to be dismissed and left to pick up the pieces alone.
Through this series, I’m opening a window into an ongoing campaign — it’s an invitation for hospital decision-makers to finally step up after more than four years of denying the abuse and injuries I sustained by one of their surgeons. I am drawing from my personal malpractice journey, yet it mirrors untold numbers of malpractice journeys where the injured have been and will be shut out and failed by rigid, inhumane brick wall systems.
OhioHealth is the responsible hospital corporation. I will address each email message to their “Leadership” teams, which includes their president and other top administrators. Copies may also be sent to employees, the media, lawyers, and patient advocates.
We’re all human, and injuries happen. Medical professionals need and deserve legal protection, but so do patients. This is about accountability and systemic reform, not a personal attack.
This is about addressing the imbalance of power and confronting hypocrisy.
Subject: Injured by Surgeon, Silenced by OhioHealth, Part 1 - 9/13/25
Dear OhioHealth Leadership Team:
In 2021, during my first follow-up appointment after surgery for a terrible triad elbow injury, I sustained injuries that affected most of my body when an OhioHealth surgeon used dangerous manipulation under anesthesia-type procedures, WITHOUT anesthesia. With no warning, explanation, or consent, he grabbed me repeatedly, crushing my hand and forcing my arm through ranges of motion. He didn’t stop when I cried out for him to stop. The result was extensive bodily injury. A doctor told me that what the surgeon did was assault.
The Risk Management Director instructed me to submit a complaint to OhioHealth that would be reviewed by their doctors and lawyers. After almost a year of reaching out to OhioHealth—trusting in their mission and expecting them to honor their promise to patients, the director informed me it was decided that the surgeon’s actions were “within his scope of work” and he merely “needs to work on communication.” I pleaded my case up the ladder to the top “leadership” team, who ignored me.
I have endured more than 150 medical, PT, pain management, and mental health appointments—with more than 100 medical and PT in the first year alone—plus countless hours of daily PT exercises at home. I was disabled for two years, lost my home because I could not work, and still live with daily pain and lasting limitations from what was done to me.
Several months after their verdict, I protested OhioHealth for three months and continued to be ignored. I imagine this is how all injured patients are treated at OhioHealth. They know most of us have no legal recourse because our rights were stripped over 20 years ago in Ohio by what’s called Tort Reform!
(I’ve included a short video that I made about tort reform here.)
I recently went through the channels to give OhioHealth yet another opportunity to step up and was told this matter had already been dealt with. It has not been dealt with. It has been covered up, and at least one other person reached out to me who was injured in an abusive way by the same surgeon. That wouldn’t have happened if I had been listened to. And - who knows - maybe another injured patient was ignored before me and I wouldn’t have been injured if OhioHealth had listened to them.
You can see how this can go on and on, needlessly.
Liz Florentino, Survivor on a Mission
Patient Rights Advocate
Author of Angels, Bullies, & Brick Walls: Lessons from Surviving Medical Malpractice
https://www.youtube.com/@survivoronamission
#ReformTortReform