INDIANAPOLIS — A lawsuit over the denial of an Indianapolis hospital to use ivermectin to treat a COVID-19 patient was dropped Monday.
The lawsuit filed by the daughter of a woman at Ascension St. Vincent on 86th Street was voluntarily dismissed, according to the family's attorney. 13News was told the dismissal was because the patient is "appreciably better."
The lawsuit claimed a doctor had prescribed ivermectin, but Ascension St. Vincent had refused to provide the unapproved treatment for COVID-19.
Ivermectin is used to treat parasites in animals and people. But it is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19.
"You have an obligation to provide care which is beneficial and which you believe, given your training experience, is actually beneficial as a hope or a possibility of helping and not hurting," said Dr. Peter Schwartz, director of the Indiana University Center for Bioethics. "Therefore, they are taking a hardline, a correct hardline, to say we do not believe this will benefit you. We believe it may harm you and therefore we are perhaps compassionately saying no."
A court hearing had been scheduled on the lawsuit for Tuesday, but that is no longer necessary now that the family has withdrawn the lawsuit.
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