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WEST CHESTER, Ohio (LifeSiteNews) – An Ohio judge last week ruled that a hospital must treat a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator with the drug ivermectin following a lawsuit brought by the patient’s wife.

Butler County Common Pleas Judge Gregory Howard on Monday ordered West Chester Hospital to administer ivermectin to 51-year-old Jeffrey Smith, who was admitted to the ICU six weeks ago with COVID-19, according to the Ohio Capitol Journal. The hospital is required to give Smith 30mg of ivermectin per day for 21 days, Howard ruled.

Smith’s wife, Julie, had requested that West Chester Hospital treat her husband with the FDA-approved anti-parasitic drug, though the hospital refused to do so even after running out of other treatment options, according to a lawsuit filed by Julie Smith on August 20.

The lawsuit states that Mr. Smith, who was sedated and put on a ventilator at the beginning of August, is “on death’s doorstep” and has “suffered infection after infection” while in the ICU. His “chances of survival have dropped to less than 30%.”

“At this point, [West Chester Hospital] has exhausted its course of treatment and COVID-19 protocol in treating Jeffrey, which is unacceptable to Ms. Smith.”

Julie Smith began investigating alternative treatments, according to her lawsuit, and consulted Ohio-based pulmonologist Dr. Fred Wagshul, MD, who prescribed her husband ivermectin. Wagshul is a founding member of the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a group of physicians that has developed coronavirus treatment protocols with ivermectin reportedly used by hundreds of doctors around the world.

Judge Howard’s ruling requires West Chester Hospital to comply with Dr. Wagshul’s ivermectin prescription and further orders by Wagshul regarding ivermectin for Jeffrey Smith.

Several studies have shown that ivermectin, a widely-used generic drug with virtually no risk of serious side effects, can be effective against COVID-19. Federal regulators and drug makers have nevertheless aggressively suppressed the medication, though various leading experts, like RNA vaccine inventor Dr. Robert Malone, have endorsed it as a COVID treatment.

Ralph Lorigo, the New York attorney representing Julie Smith, has won similar cases in other states in recent months, including against hospitals in New York and Illinois. The patients in all of those cases improved after being given ivermectin, despite having been in critical condition, Julie Smith’s lawsuit noted.