Tamara Drock Florida school teacher dies of COVID after unsuccessfully suing hospital to be treated with ivermectin. Is the animal de-wormer safe to use?
A Florida school teacher hospitalized with COVID-19 has died after her husband unsuccessfully sued to force doctors to treat her with ivermectin, an animal de-wormer.
Tamara Drock, 47, of Loxahatchee, Fla., died on Friday, 12 weeks after being admitted to Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Her husband Ryan Drock sued the hospital in October in an attempt to require doctors to administer ivermectin, a drug used to treat conditions caused by parasitic worms.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved the drug to treat COVID-19, saying it hasn’t proven effective in pre-clinical trials.
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge James Nutt rejected Drock’s lawsuit last month, stating that allowing judges to countermand doctors’ decisions could set a dangerous precedent. He urged the Drocks and the hospital to try to reach an agreement on their own.
Does a patient have the right to demand what treatment they receive?
A deal fell apart the Egret Lake Elementary school teacher’s condition got worse and she was placed on a ventilator in September after being in the hospital for more than a month, according to WPTV.
‘This woman is sitting on her deathbed,’ the couple’s attorney Jake Huxtable said at the time. ‘She flatlined a couple of days ago and they revived her. But the hospital is out of options.’
Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center said it had exhausted all other medical treatments, according to WPTV.
It is not known what other treatments Tamara received leading up to her death.
In the husband’s filing, Ryan Drock offered to release the hospital from any liability for the controversial treatment.
A county judge dismissed Drock’s petition, saying he had no legal right ‘to demand a particular treatment.’
An emergency room physician at a different Tenet Healthcare facility had allegedly authorized the use of the drug for Tamara and there was a pharmacy available to fill the prescription, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Constitutional right to choose what is done to their body
‘We’re not asking the court to compel the hospital to give her an unsafe horse dosage,’ Huxtable said at the time, referring to the injectable form of the medication that is used to treat worms in horses and other livestock.
The doctor agreed to administer ivermectin at a dosage the family’s attorney said was too low, the newspaper reported, but the lawyer said it was more about the right to choose what happens to your body.
‘We don’t know if [the drug] would have saved her life, but it could have,’ Huxtable said.
‘Maybe it wouldn’t have done anything, but we’re pursuing the case strictly from a legal perspective. Every person in Florida has a constitutional right to choose what is done with their own body.’
The mother-of-two died on November 12 from complications due to COVID-19, the Palm Beach Post reported. She leaves behind her husband, her 14-year-old daughter Emily and her 12-year-old son Parker.
Ryan Drock, who also was infected but recovered from COVID-19, and he told the Palm Beach Post that he’s not giving up.
‘I’m hoping they name a law after her so no one has to go through this,’ Drock said. ‘If she had walked out of the hospital she could have had the medication.’
The family has set up a GoFundMe page to help cover Tamara’s medical bills. It has raised over $10, 500 out of its $150,000 goal as of Tuesday night, November 16.
