In 2017, army veteran Richard Hopkins, aged 65, of Davenport died after developing a post-surgery infection at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Iowa City. His family filed a medical malpractice lawsuit in June 2019 against the hospital. His family says that the infection that killed him was caused by medical negligence and that at least 3 other patients in the same hospital suffered similar complications.

The hospital negligence lawsuit centers around the fact that Veterans Affairs hospital in Iowa City illegally hired a neurosurgeon, John Henry Schneider, who has a history of medical malpractice allegations and whose medical license had been revoked in Wyoming in 2014 due to allegations of poor patient care. The hospital hired Schneider in 2017 at an annual salary of $385,000 despite knowing his past and that there is a federal law stipulating that doctors whose state licenses have been revoked cannot work for the Veterans Affairs hospitals no matter the state that it is in.