A Denver family is blaming an emergency room doctor for the 2016 death of their 10-year-old son, who was barely able to breathe when he was sent home from the hospital, according to news reports.

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The boy's mother, Deborah Saeed Gay says another doctor at Swedish Medical Center near Denver told the family's attorney that the doctor who treated their son, who had flu symptoms that night, was a known illegal drug user, KDVR-TV reported.

Saeed Gay believes the doctor was high on drugs and should not have been practicing when her child was brought in.

She also told KDVR that patients should have the right to know when a doctor has been disciplined and the reasons.

"If there had transparency regarding the doctor, then my son would probably still be alive today," Saeed Gay said, according to the news station.

Saeed Gay filed a negligence lawsuit against the hospital and is fighting to make hospitals’ private internal disciplinary peer reviews public.

Medical professionals are opposed and believe the current peer review system improves patient safety.

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Fulton DA Fani Willis (center) with Nathan J. Wade (right), the special prosecutor she hired to manage the Trump case and had a romantic relationship with, at a news conference announcing charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023. Georgia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, upheld an appeals court's decision to disqualify Willis from the election interference case against Trump and his allies. (Kenny Holston/New York Times)

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