Basinger's Lawsuit: Pharmacy Didn't Bring Woman Her Oxygen

JOLIET, IL — The Basinger's Pharmacy at Joliet's Marycrest Plaza is being sued by a woman who was hospitalized after employees at Basinger's failed to refill her oxygen tank, according to Pauline Whitfield's lawsuit at the Will County Courthouse.

Whitfield is represented by the Chicago law firm of Goldstein Bender & Romanoff. Attorney Alan Bender has asked Will County's judges to issue a judgment in excess of $50,000 for his client, plus his legal fees for bringing the lawsuit forward.

Joliet Patch visited Basinger's Pharmacy on Tuesday morning seeking comment from the pharmacy's owner Harish Bhatt. Patch showed him a copy of the lawsuit while he was working in the back of his pharmacy helping a customer. Bhatt said he had no idea about the lawsuit and that he will let his lawyers will handle it.

Patch offered him a copy of the lawsuit to keep, but Bhatt declined to take it.

According to Whitfield's lawsuit, Basinger's Pharmacy in Joliet provides home health equipment and services including home oxygen to residents of Joliet. On Aug. 1, 2019, Whitfield lived at an assisted living facility due to her advanced age and underlying medical condition including Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease "for which she required daily oxygen delivery via a home oxygen concentrator."

The Chicago law firm stated that Whifield notified Basinger's Marycrest Pharmacy "that her home oxygen concentrator was running out of oxygen, that she was oxygen-dependent and living in an assisted living facility and that she therefore needed home oxygen delivered to her residence."

Her lawsuit contends that Basinger's advised her that it would send a technician to her residence for the service.

Whitfield's lawsuit states that on Aug. 4, 2019, she was hospitalized due to a lack of oxygen. The lawsuit accuses Basinger's Pharmacy of several counts of negligence, including having "failed to deliver oxygen and service to plaintiff's home oxygen concentrator in a timely and reasonable fashion" and having "failed to schedule and dispatch to the plaintiff's residence after accepting her as a customer in need of home oxygen."

The lawsuit indicates that Whitfield suffered "severe and disabling injuries both internally and externally."