Melissa Rivers files lawsuit against clinic

Melissa Rivers has launched a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the clinic and doctors who treated her late mother Joan Rivers.

The legendary comic died in September last year of brain damage caused by a loss of oxygen during a routine outpatient procedure. And on Monday, the 81-year-old’s only child Melissa filed the lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court, naming five doctors and the clinic as defendants.

“The level of medical mismanagement, incompetency, disrespect and outrageous behaviour is shocking and frankly almost incomprehensible,” she said according to Page Six. “Not only did my mother deserve better, every patient deserves better.”

The Fashion Police host had gone in for an endoscopy and an examination on her throat to check for possible causes of voice changes. While the doctors carried out the procedures, they also did an unauthorised examination of her vocal chords and windpipe that resulted in a laryngospasm which made her throat seize up and stop oxygen getting to the brain.

The lawsuit alleges that it also caused her to become unable to expel carbon dioxide from her lungs leading to a heart attack and irreversible brain damage.

The complaint also claims that for 20 minutes while doctors tried to revive her, nobody performed a trachetomy to open up her airways.

“Had doctors acted as physicians for Joan Rivers instead of groupies, Joan Rivers would have been doing Fashion Police last week,” said one family lawyer Jeffrey Bloom.

Joan left the clinic in a coma and passed away a week later surrounded by her family.