Hospital forces man to take rectal exam after hitting his head!

BROOKLYN, New York - January 16, 2008 - A visit to a hospital for a bump to the head turned into a big pain in the posterior for a Brooklyn construction worker.

Brian Persaud ended up in handcuffs and under arrest when he loudly protested that doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell didn't need to give him a rectal exam after a piece of wood clocked him on the forehead.

"This poor guy goes in for eight stitches and he ends up in jail," said his lawyer, Gerard Marrone. "He had the right to say no."

Doctors sedated Persaud and then did the rectal exam.

A Manhattan judge denied the hospital's bid to have Persaud's malpractice suit against the hospital tossed, setting up a civil trial slated to start March 31.

"We're looking forward to our day in court," Marrone said. "I want to tell this story to a jury."

Persaud, 38, was working at a midtown construction site in May 2003 when a plank slammed him in the head, knocking him down.

Medical records state Persaud was "alert and oriented times three" when he was taken to the hospital's emergency room, where a resident informed him he needed a rectal examination.

"Who in the heck is the doctor to force a medical procedure on you if you're conscious?" Marrone said.
The revelation about the rectal exam set off Persaud, who smacked a doctor during a struggle and yelled, "Where I came from, you don't put anything in someone's a------!"

The outburst led to Persaud being sedated and arrested, though the matter was later dismissed.

A spokesman for the hospital described Persaud's suit as "completely without merit ... [We] intend to vigorously contest it."