Hospital declines to provide any explanation
PEORIA, Ill. (February 24, 2025) – UnityPoint Health (Now Carle Health) in Peoria, Ill. has admitted negligence for mistakenly leaving dangerous, non-dissolvable sutures inside a patient during surgery at Methodist Hospital, causing permanent and painful injuries. Multiple additional patients are victims of the same error, and several lawsuits are pending, including a case filed on behalf of a local artist by the Chicago law firm Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard.
On December 12, 2018, Plaintiff Greg Neubert, 64, underwent a robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy, a procedure to remove the prostate, at UnityPoint Health Methodist Hospital in Peoria, Ill. The surgery was performed by Dr. Jon Soble, who was assisted by several other employees of the hospital. During the surgery, barbed, non-dissolvable sutures were erroneously placed inside Mr. Neubert.
Following surgery, Mr. Neubert began experiencing worrisome symptoms, which increased over time. It was not until September of 2019, when Methodist Hospital sent Mr. Neubert a letter, that he was provided an explanation for his symptoms: Somehow, the surgeon and hospital staff had mistakenly placed non-dissolvable sutures inside Mr. Neubert. Due to the location, these sutures were supposed to be temporary and dissolve after a relatively short period of time. Unfortunately, as Mr. Neubert learned after consulting with doctors, the sutures that were placed inside him were the wrong ones; they were permanent and cannot be completely removed.
In September of 2019, it was revealed that what happened to Mr. Neubert was not an isolated incident, but rather an error that affected multiple patients. A letter similar to Mr. Neubert’s was sent to all the former patients who were affected, informing them of the error, but the letter declined to provide any explanation as to how this happened. Dr. Soble was apparently dismissed from his position in November 2019, although he maintains he was never given a clear reason for his termination.
In October of 2021, Mr. Neubert and his wife filed a civil lawsuit in Peoria County Court against Methodist Hospital and Dr. Soble, claiming the medical error has led to severe and permanent pain and requires regular treatment.
Mr. Neubert has had to undergo several medical procedures to address the consequences of this medical error. He will likely need to continue to undergo these procedures for the rest of his life.
Methodist Hospital admitted negligence on February 19, 2025. Methodist has so far declined to offer any explanation as to how these errors occurred, or what steps they have taken to ensure the error does not happen again.
Dr. Soble maintains the errors were the fault of the Methodist employees, and he further claims that he has not been given any explanation by the hospital as to how these errors occurred. Dr. Soble has testified that the hospital should have the relevant information as to why these errors occurred, but the hospital so far has declined to provide any official explanation, despite more than three years of litigation.
“Since the error, Mr. Neubert has lived his life in pain. He has had to undergo catheterization and multiple additional procedures. As a result of this error, my client’s life has been changed forever,” Plaintiff’s attorney Thomas R. Mulroy III of Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard said. “Despite these errors having been discovered by Methodist over five years ago, I am appalled that we have yet to receive an official explanation from the hospital as to how this could have happened to multiple people. In our society, we give hospitals and doctors a lot of trust, especially when it comes to putting us under anesthesia and performing surgery. There are no cameras or recordings of what happens in the operating room. We must rely on the honesty and good faith of the medical industry when they harm us with mistakes. We trust they will be honest about what happened. In this case, the hospital continues to stonewall Mr. Neubert after over three years of litigation, finally admitting liability six long years after the errors were made but continuing to refuse to explain how and why these non-dissolvable sutures were mistakenly placed in so many patients.”
Multiple lawsuits are pending in Peoria County related to UnityPoint’s usage of nonabsorbable sutures.
For more information, please contact Marcie Mangan at (312) 372-1227 or mmangan@salvilaw.com.
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Case No. 21 L 221 [Neubert v. Soble, et al.]
