LOS ANGELES - A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.
Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.
Relatives said Rodriguez was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.
County and state authorities are now investigating Rodriguez’s death. Relatives reported she died as police were wheeling her out of the hospital after the officers they had asked to help Rodriguez arrested her instead on a parole violation. Sheriff’s Department spokesman Duane Allen said Wednesday that the investigation is ongoing.
In the recordings of two 911 calls that day, first obtained by the Los Angeles Times under a California Public Records Act request, callers pleaded for help for Rodriguez but were referred to hospital staff instead.
“I’m in the emergency room. My wife is dying and the nurses don’t want to help her out,†Rodriguez’s boyfriend, Jose Prado, is heard saying in Spanish through an interpreter on the tapes.
“What’s wrong with her?†a female dispatcher asked.
“She’s vomiting blood,†Prado said.
“OK, and why aren’t they helping her?†the dispatcher asked.
‘They’re just watching her’ “They’re watching her there and they’re not doing anything. They’re just watching her,†Prado said.
The dispatcher told Prado to contact a doctor and then said paramedics wouldn’t pick her up because she was already in a hospital. She later told him to contact county police officers at a security desk.
A second 911 call was placed eight minutes later by a bystander who requested that an ambulance be sent to take Rodriguez to another hospital for care.
“She’s definitely sick and there’s a guy that’s ignoring her,†the woman told a male dispatcher.
During the call, the dispatcher argued with the woman over whether there really was an emergency.
“I cannot do anything for you for the quality of the hospital. ... It is not an emergency. It is not an emergency ma’am,†he said.
“You’re not here to see how they’re treating her,†the woman replied.
The dispatcher refused to call paramedics and told the woman that she should contact hospital supervisors “and let them know†if she is unhappy.
‘May God strike you too’ “May God strike you too for acting the way you just acted,†the woman said finally.
“No, negative ma’am, you’re the one,†he said.
The incident was the latest high-profile lapse at King-Harbor, formerly known as King/Drew. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is investigating claims of recent patient care breakdowns, including Rodriguez’s case.
Federal inspectors last week said emergency room patients were in “immediate jeopardy†of harm or death, and King-Harbor was given 23 days to shape up or risk losing federal funding.
‘Fundamentally a failure of caring’ Dr. Bruce Chernof, director of the county Department of Health Services, which oversees the facility, has called Rodriguez’s death “inexcusable†and said it was “important to understand that this was fundamentally a failure of caring.†He has said conditions are improving, though.
A call Wednesday seeking comment about the 911 tapes from the department’s communications office, which handles information about the hospital, was not immediately returned.
Dr. Roger Peeks, the chief medical officer at the hospital, was placed on “ordered absence†Monday, the Times reported. Health officials declined to elaborate, saying it was a personnel matter. Dr. Robert Splawn, chief medical officer for the health department, was named interim chief medical officer, the newspaper said.
Post subject: Re: Woman dies in ER lobby as 911 refuses to help
Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:00 am
too drunk to moderate properly
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Quote:
Dr. Bruce Chernof, director of the county Department of Health Services, which oversees the facility, has called Rodriguez’s death “inexcusable†and said it was “important to understand that this was fundamentally a failure of caring.†He has said conditions are improving, though.
Ya' think?
Quote:
Dr. Roger Peeks, the chief medical officer at the hospital, was placed on “ordered absenceâ€.
Was he given a perforated bowel and left to die on a crowded floor? That only seems fair.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Dr. Roger Peeks, the chief medical officer at the hospital, was placed on “ordered absenceâ€.
Was he given a perforated bowel and left to die on a crowded floor? That only seems fair.
Its so tempting to say that sounds like something somebody who is for the death penalty would say
But that is absolutely disgusting. I am very curious to hear what the "reason" was that the staff could possibly allow this to happen.
_________________ "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck
Post subject: Re: Woman dies in ER lobby as 911 refuses to help
Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:25 am
too drunk to moderate properly
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
aprilfifth wrote:
Its so tempting to say that sounds like something somebody who is for the death penalty would say
Individual humans have moments of weakness.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Its so tempting to say that sounds like something somebody who is for the death penalty would say
Individual humans have moments of weakness.
Lol, that one was just too easy, I had to take it.
_________________ "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
LittleWing wrote:
Universal Healthcare would have solved this.
It would have been tough to have done worse.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 9:50 am Posts: 1838 Location: Perth, Australia Gender: Male
Jammer91 wrote:
that's fucking sickening. I hope somebody firebombs that fucking hospital.
that should help things.
_________________ a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively there's no such thing as death life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
LittleWing wrote:
The reason 47 million American's don't have health insurance is because they are too lazy to go out and get it. Nor do they NEED it. An emergency room can never turn you away.
Maybe this was an anecdotal case of negligence. Maybe this was one hospital's underfunded services. Or maybe ... maybe, ERs wouldn't be overtaxed if everyone had access to early care and prevention.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Speaking of shitty healthcare for minorities ...
Quote:
Heart Attack Treatment Differs by Race Fewer Procedures, More Deaths for African-Americans, Study Shows By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Medical NewsReviewed by Louise Chang, MDJune 12, 2007 – After heart attacks, African-Americans get less open-heart surgery and fewer artery-unblocking procedures -- and are more likely to die -- than whites.
It's not ancient history. The finding comes from a contemporary analysis of the medical records of more than 1.2 million Medicare patients aged 68 and older. All of the patients had first heart attacks between 2000 and 2005.
Heart attacks happen when blood vessels supplying the heart muscle become blocked, leading to the death of parts of the heart muscle. For some patients, it's helpful to unblock these arteries -- either by bypass surgery or by balloon angioplasty.
These procedures work equally well for people of all races. Yet studies consistently find that African-American heart attack patients are significantly less likely to get these procedures than are white heart attack patients.
A new study led by Ioana Popescu, MD, MPH, of the Iowa City VA Medical Center and the University of Iowa, shows this racial disparity persists.
"Unfortunately, the differences we found were not small," Popescu tells WebMD.
Popescu and colleagues found that compared with white patients:
When treated at hospitals that provide angioplasty and bypass surgery, African-American heart attack patients receive these services less often (34% vs. 50%).
When treated at hospitals that do not provide these specialized heart services, African-American heart attack patients are less likely to be transferred to a hospital that does provide them (25% vs. 31%).
"Even after transfer to a hospital that provided them, African-American patients were less likely to receive these services," Popescu says. While African-American heart attack patients are less likely to die in the month after their heart attack -- possibly due to the short-term risk posed by the procedures -- they are more likely to die within a year of their heart attack (37% vs. 33%).
"This study tells us there is a difference in quality of care for heart attack -- and it leads to a mortality difference," Giselle Corbie-Smith, MD, tells WebMD. Corbie-Smith, director of the program on health disparities at the University of North Carolina Sheps Center for Health Services Research, was not involved in the Popescu study.
Popescu is quick to point out that the study does not answer important questions, such as why these disparities exist and what can be done about them.
"We are still uncovering these racial differences so much talked about since the '90s -- and the gap is not closing," she says. "This is worrisome."
Corbie-Smith agrees that the study does not explain why disparities exist. But she says it does a great service by pointing them out.
"What I like about this study is it gives another point of discussion for patients to have with their doctors," she says. "I see it as another opportunity for people to have more open discussions with their doctors."
Popescu notes that there's very little opportunity for discussion once a person has a heart attack. But heart attacks rarely come from nowhere. The time to have frank discussions with your doctor, she says, is when patients first become aware that they have heart attack risk factors.
"Your best bet is to ask your doctor as many questions as you can," she says. "Never be shy of doing that."
Popescu and colleagues report their findings in the June 13 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:57 pm Posts: 3332 Location: Chicago-ish
B wrote:
LittleWing wrote:
The reason 47 million American's don't have health insurance is because they are too lazy to go out and get it. Nor do they NEED it. An emergency room can never turn you away.
That's one of the most ignorant things I've ever read. I know alot of people with jobs, who are DENIED health care because of bureacracy and stupid rules.
My dad, for example, has worked at the same place for 20 years. His employer stopped payment on insurance and he didn't find out until he coudln't get his prescriptions re-filled. By that time, the time period to switch insurance companies had passed meaning nobody will take him. Add to the fact he's a diabetic, it makes it even worse. Lazy? He's spent more time trying to get insurance ....
Sorry, 47 million is more systematic than cultural laziness...
False. Canada has universal healthcare and a six hour wait in ER is not unheard of. I've had a broken bone and not bothered going in right after it happened as I knew a Saturday night in ER is at least a 4 hour wait for a broken bone. Much less frustrating to just get drunk and go in early Sunday morning.
The US does have universal healthcare. ER's have to accept patients. How much more universal do you need?
ER's are only as good as the initial triage done. If the admitting nurse makes a mistake in the patient priority the patient is fucked.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:52 pm Posts: 10620 Location: Chicago, IL Gender: Male
B wrote:
LittleWing wrote:
The reason 47 million American's don't have health insurance is because they are too lazy to go out and get it. Nor do they NEED it. An emergency room can never turn you away.
Maybe this was an anecdotal case of negligence. Maybe this was one hospital's underfunded services. Or maybe ... maybe, ERs wouldn't be overtaxed if everyone had access to early care and prevention.
Are you really arguing that, with universal health care, people will recognize that it's incumbent upon them to seek preventative care where visits to the ER are unnecessary which will, in turn, lead to ERs, that are currently overtaxed (presumably, based upon your implication, because of the fact that we don't have universal health care), being efficient and responsive?
I dunno B... It's hard to say that it's shitty healthcare for minorities. The person who did the study even said you shouldn't draw conclusions from it.
Patients in countries that provide government insurance often experience hurdles to care such as extremely long waitlists.
By Michael Tanner and Michael Cannon, MICHAEL TANNER is director of health and welfare studies and MICHAEL CANNON is director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute.
April 5, 2007
AS THEY TACK left and right state by state, the Democratic presidential contenders can't agree on much. But one cause they all support — along with Republicans such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and California's own Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — is universal health coverage. And all of them are wrong.
What these politicians and many other Americans fail to understand is that there's a big difference between universal coverage and actual access to medical care.
Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them. Britain's Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals, and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that "access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare."
Supporters of universal coverage fear that people without health insurance will be denied the healthcare they need. Of course, all Americans already have access to at least emergency care. Hospitals are legally obligated to provide care regardless of ability to pay, and although physicians do not face the same legal requirements, we do not hear of many who are willing to deny treatment because a patient lacks insurance.
You may think it is self-evident that the uninsured may forgo preventive care or receive a lower quality of care. And yet, in reviewing all the academic literature on the subject, Helen Levy of the University of Michigan's Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured, and David Meltzer of the University of Chicago, were unable to establish a "causal relationship" between health insurance and better health. Believe it or not, there is "no evidence," Levy and Meltzer wrote, that expanding insurance coverage is a cost-effective way to promote health. Similarly, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year found that, although far too many Americans were not receiving the appropriate standard of care, "health insurance status was largely unrelated to the quality of care."
Another common concern is that the young and healthy will go without insurance, leaving a risk pool of older and sicker people. This results in higher insurance premiums for those who are insured. But that's only true if the law forbids insurers from charging their customers according to the cost of covering them. If companies can charge more to cover people who are likely to need more care — smokers, the elderly, etc. — then it won't make any difference who does or doesn't buy insurance.
Finally, some suggest that when people without health insurance receive treatment, the cost of their care is passed along to the rest of us. This is undeniably true. Yet, it is a manageable problem. According to Jack Hadley and John Holahan of the left-leaning Urban Institute, uncompensated care for the uninsured amounts to less than 3% of total healthcare spending — a real cost, no doubt, but hardly a crisis.
Everyone agrees that far too many Americans lack health insurance. But covering the uninsured comes about as a byproduct of getting other things right. The real danger is that our national obsession with universal coverage will lead us to neglect reforms — such as enacting a standard health insurance deduction, expanding health savings accounts and deregulating insurance markets — that could truly expand coverage, improve quality and make care more affordable
As H. L. Mencken said: "For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong." Universal healthcare is a textbook case.
False. Canada has universal health care and a six hour wait in ER is not unheard of. I've had a broken bone and not bothered going in right after it happened as I knew a Saturday night in ER is at least a 4 hour wait for a broken bone. Much less frustrating to just get drunk and go in early Sunday morning.
The US does have universal health care. ER's have to accept patients. How much more universal do you need?
ER's are only as good as the initial triage done. If the admitting nurse makes a mistake in the patient priority the patient is fucked.
Based on stories like this and numerous others I think your wrong that the US emergency rooms have to accept patients. maybe they do, but it doesn't work in real life.
regardless i have dealt with the canadian health care system for 24 years and have never had a complaint. My dad has an auto immune disease and needs monthly treatments. I have had two friends diagnosed with leukemia in there teens/early twenties. They have never had a complaint about the service. free service. my dads treatments alone would cost a thousand or two a month, and the cancer treatments would cost alot more.
I really think that people are morons if they trust an insurance company to do the job. or expect the patients themselves to pay, especially for diseases like this. its not like its lung cancer from smoking or diabetes from being huge. people unlucky in there health should not be forced to suffer medically or financially for it, and if you think so you are a cold hearted bastard.
Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them. Britain's Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals, and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that "access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare."
Supporters of universal coverage fear that people without health insurance will be denied the healthcare they need. Of course, all Americans already have access to at least emergency care. Hospitals are legally obligated to provide care regardless of ability to pay, and although physicians do not face the same legal requirements, we do not hear of many who are willing to deny treatment because a patient lacks insurance.
regardless of a waiting list, which i think is vastly overrated her in canada. as in people need to complain about something. anybody i know has not had much of a problem with health care or a waiting list.
anyways for people without insurance, or with insurance what wont cover their procedures, american health care is rediculous. you may save their lives but bankrupt them in the process, what kind of system is that?
I dont know how these few facts dont change peoples minds
# Although nearly 47 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens (4).
# Health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (5).
Nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of the uninsured reported changing their way of life significantly in order to pay medical bills (10).
# A recent study by Harvard University researchers found that the average out-of-pocket medical debt for those who filed for bankruptcy was $12,000. The study noted that 68 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy had health insurance. In addition, the study found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses (14). Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem.
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