Judge Hatchett’s Son, Charles Johnson, Sues Cedars-Sinai Over Alleged Negligence That Led To Wife’s Death During Childbirth

Judge Hatchett’s son Charles Johnson is suing Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for allegedly ignoring his wife’s need for medical assistance during “routine C-section” that led to her death.

Three years ago, Johnson’s wife, Kira Johnson, passed away while giving birth at Cedars SinaiMedical Center. Johnson said he was by Kira’s side the entire time and became worrisome when they had to wait hours for Kira to have her surgery as her catheter started to turn pink with blood. “I said, ‘please look, my wife isn’t doing well.’ This woman looked me directly in my eyes and said, ‘Sir, your wife just isn’t a priority right now,’” he said.

When doctors finally started to work on Kira, there were three-and-a-half liters of blood in her abdomen from where she’d bled internally for almost 10 hours. Less than 12 hours after giving birth to her second child, Kira died from a hemorrhage. The Cedars-Sinai has refused to comment directly about the case, according to CBS Los Angeles, but it said it “thoroughly investigates any situation where there are concerns about a patient’s medical care.”

According to the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System, the maternal mortality rate for black women is 37.1 per 100,000 live births and about two-and-a-half times the rate for white women and three times the rate for Hispanic women. “They researched, they were in Los Angeles, they knew that Cedar Sinai was a world-class hospital and after she died, they said ‘Oh, had we gotten her back to the operating room she would be perfectly fine. Oh, if we had…’ Well, why the hell didn’t they? It was not that she was sick, it’s not that she had a preexisting condition, that she had a heart problem or she had a blood clot, none of that was Kira’s case,” said Judge Hatchett, who was reportedly very close to Kira.

Johnson has started a nonprofit called 4Kira4Moms dedicated to celebrating Kira’s life and helping families who have experienced birth-related deaths, BOSSIP reports.