“Family had been kept in the dark about mother’s final moments at Kindred Hospital Sugar Land”

Manuela Chapa, on her 85th birthday in 2012.

by Mike Hixenbaugh | The Houston Chronicle

“The package came in January: An anonymous letter and a stack of government records, stuffed in a yellow envelope with no return address and mailed to her late mother’s home in Damon.

“Cris Chapa ripped it open and began to cry.

“She thought of the day, March 12, 2015, when medical staff at Kindred Hospital Sugar Land sat her down in a waiting room. They’d said there was nothing anyone could have done. Led her to believe her 87-year-old mother’s death had been the inevitable result of her bout with pneumonia.

“The stranger’s letter told a different story:

“Her mother hadn’t died peacefully, it said. Instead, a doctor had attempted a procedure without Chapa’s knowledge or legal consent, and it had gone badly. Blood poured from a tube in her mother’s neck. Soaked her hospital gown. Caused her heart to stop.”

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