Robin Monotti + Cory Morningstar

IVERMECTIN: "The patient’s son, Michael Smentkiewicz, said hospital officials had told him and his sister, Michelle Kulbacki, on Dec. 31 that their mother’s chance of survival – as an 80-year-old Covid-19 patient on a ventilator – was about 20%.
He said doctors at the hospital also told the family that Smentkiewicz would probably be on a ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit for at least a month.

“We did a lot of our own research, we read about Ivermectin ... The results sounded very promising, and we decided we had to try something different,” Michael Smentkiewicz said. “We pressured the doctor in the ICU to give it to her. He finally agreed.”
On Jan. 2, Smentkiewicz was given her first dose of Ivermectin, and according to court papers filed by her family, she made “a complete turnaround.”
“In less than 48 hours, my mother was taken off the ventilator, transferred out of the Intensive Care Unit, sitting up on her own and communicating,” Kulbacki said in a court affidavit.
But after her mother was transferred to another hospital wing away from the ICU, doctors in that unit refused to give her any more doses of the drug, and her condition quickly declined, the family said in court papers.

“We were astounded when they refused to give her any more doses,” Michael Smentkiewicz said. “That’s why I called Ralph Lorigo and we took the hospital to court.”
Kaleida Health, which operates the hospital, opposed the family’s request in court. Lorigo said Kaleida attorney Michael J. Roach argued to Judge Nowak that doctors – and not the courts – should be making decisions about medical care.
On Jan. 8, Nowak ordered the hospital to “immediately administer the drug Ivermectin” to Smentkiewicz, court papers show.
“But the judge also told us verbally that Judith’s family doctor would have to write a prescription for Ivermectin, which he did,” Lorigo said. “In 46 years as an attorney, I’ve never seen another case where a family had to get a court order to continue a treatment that had already been started by a hospital.”

Michael P. Hughes, spokesman and chief of staff for Kaleida Health, said the health care company is "aware of this family’s position," but he declined to discuss details because of federal privacy laws and because the case has become "a legal matter."
Roach, the hospital attorney, declined to comment, telling a reporter to call Hughes.
Michael Smentkiewicz said Thursday that his mother’s condition has improved again since the Ivermectin treatments resumed.
“She called me (Wednesday) night. Her voice was raspy, but it was so exciting to hear her voice,” he said. “She is sitting up in bed. She’s off the ventilator, but she has a canula in her nose, providing supplemental oxygen.”
He added that a doctor from the hospital told him Thursday that his mother appears to have "turned the corner" in her fight against the virus.
https://buffalonews.com/news/local/after-judge-orders-hospital-to-use-experimental-covid-19-treatment-woman-recovers/article_a9eb315c-5694-11eb-aac5-53b541448755.html

Buffalo News

After judge orders hospital to use experimental Covid-19 treatment, woman recovers

Judith Smentkiewicz's children say that the drug Ivermectin – a pill sometimes used to treat children with head lice or to rid dogs and cats of worms – saved their

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