AIDS Victim Sues Harvard Health Plan Doctors

A Cambridge woman suffering from AIDS yesterday testified that Harvard Community Health Plan (HCHP) physicians ignored her claims that her symptoms were being caused by the fatal disease.

Elizabeth Ramos, 32, is seeking unspecified damages in her suit against the health plan and doctors Kenneth A. Bernstein and Cynthia G. McGinn, both Harvard clinical instructors in medicine. She claims the physicians were negligent in their diagnosis and treatment of her illness, even though her symptoms were evident.

Some experts at the trial said they believe the hearing is the first one involving an AIDS malpractice case.

Commenting on the suit, Alan Raymond, spokesman for HCHP, said in a prepared statement that the company sympathizes with Ramos, but "the facts of her case are very complicated and we are restricted as to how much we can say by the confidentiality of her medical record."

"The issue is whether Harvard Community Health Plan offered her appropriate treatment for her illness," Raymond said. "We believe her care was both compassionate and appropriate," he said.

Ramos, a former bookkeeper, told a Middlesex County Superior Court jury of 11 women and two men that she needed medical help when she first approached Bernstein, who was appointed her physician under the health plan.

Ramos, who talked softly and slowly in her testimony and appeared extremely weak, said Bernstein insisted that her symptoms were imaginary and the result of mental illness, even though she pleaded with him to tell her "what is happening to my body, what is going on?"

Ramos, who is divorced, said she contracted AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, from a former boyfriend, an intraveneous drug user.

AIDS devastates the human immune system, making the body prey to a variety of maladies. There is no cure for the disease, which strikes mostly male homosexuals and intraveneous drug users.

According to her complaint, Ramos said she noticed skin lesions, respiratory difficulties and other cardiovascular problems in 1984. The complaint says Bernstein also noted the problems in a medical examination.

The complaint states that Ramos returned to Bernstein several times in 1984 and 1985, complaining of a variety of problems, but he either advised that her symptoms were the result of stress, or cigarette smoking and lack of exercise.

Ramos claims she later informed Bernstein that blood donation officials informed her that she had AIDS antibodies in her system.

HCHP ultimately performed a Spirometer test on Ramos to determine whether she had pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, which is common among AIDS victims, but test results were incomplete because the Spirometer machine "ran out of paper and the test was not completed," according to the complaint.

In September of 1985, Ramos said she sought help at the emergency room of Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, agreeing to pay for care herself. According to the complaint, Ramos informed the emergency room supervisor, Dr. McGinn, that she had tested positive for AIDS, but McGinn recommended that Ramos receive a mental health evaluation.

Later that month, according to the complaint, Ramos asked HCHP to be admitted to a hospital. The complaint states that health plan officials told Ms. Ramos that the only treatment they felt she qualified for was psychiatric hospitalization.

Ramos said that on September 30 she went to Boston City Hospital, where she was admitted and given an immediate diagnosis of pneumocystis pneumonia.