We have another case of an alleged horrific injury due to the ever-present delays at emergency rooms in the United States. Malyia Jeffers, 2, was left for hours in the ER at the Methodist Hospital in Sacramento as her Strep A devoured her body. She ultimately lost both of her feet and one of her hands to amputations and she is fighting for her life at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
The family arrived in early December when Malyia had developed a fever and was lethargic. She also had visible bruise-like splotches on her cheeks. They sat there for five hours despite the pleas of the parents.
She was in septic shock from a Streptococcus A infection. She is now on life support.
While Malyia’s parents have medical insurance, many of their bills are not covered, including the $26,000 bill for a helicopter ride from Sacramento to Palo Alto.
I am unclear why the helicopter ride is so expensive or why it would not be covered given the medical emergency. Moreover, I do not understand why Democrats and Republicans cannot agree that the current delays in the emergency room are nothing short of a national scandal. We have all experienced these waits in ER rooms. Putting aside the current debate over the health care program, it remain a national disgrace that citizens routinely wait for hours for care. Yet, these same legislators who refuse to do anything about these lethal days are often those supporting caps on recovery for families in tort cases.
Obviously, there is a tort case in the making here for negligence. However, it could turn on factual causation question of whether Strep A would likely have resulted in the same amputations even if properly diagnosed. It would make for a poor jury case, however, for the hospital if this should go to trial.
Source: SacBee
Jonathan Turley
“I’m beginning to get a complex for Breezy Blouise sounds like a woose.” -Blouise
No “woose”, lightweight, or coward are you, my friend! You’re the glue that holds us together. You’re the lifeboat.
Rough waters ahead… Very rough.
Kudos to you both. I thank you for being well-planned patients.
And since you seem better prepared than most, one additional step I might include is to research your particular physicians, as best you can, in your free time. There are some terrific websites out there.
Because the final medical miscreant tally for 2010 is 2,318. That’s the number of physician convictions last year, for serious misbehavior & crime.
Five times that many were sanctioned for “lesser offenses,” which is frightening, in & of itself.
Kung Fu Nurse and Sherlockian Lottakatz … I’m beginning to get a complex for Breezy Blouise sounds like a woose
Kung Fu Nurse strikes again!
Dr. Harris,
touché
PatricParamedic,
Yes, of course you are right. The hospital they choose has all the units you mentioned and is especially well known for its Trauma Unit … we, my husband and I, carry the same documents designating that hospital’s ER. (the smaller hospital I use for his on-going problem is not in Cuyahoga County) The name of the hospital is MetroHealth, used to be Cleveland Metro.
With that information in hand, perhaps you are able to guess why people who know hospitals feel the need to designate.
What would give me the right, the ability, the capacity, or the will, to hold in lesser esteem, or as being of less inherent worth, someone who challenges my personal worth and the merit of my work, than I would hold regarding someone who values what I do?
Gyges wrote:
“…flung poo.”
______________
Anyone herein, like frank, who has “flung poo” must henceforth be subjected to bouts of Klung Flu and Kung Foo…
Consult Kung Fu/Foo Nurse, instead of Nurse Ratched, in this case, although frank clearly is one who floo over the cuckoo’s nest and deserves serious and protracted ‘correction’ by both good nurses.
(Etymological note: flung poo = floo; a wurd combination/contraction of 2 wurds’ fl/oo)
Frankly, frank, please do not be a foo because them aforementioned nurses don’t pitty the foo, like Mr. T do…
Blouise –
Carrying specific hospital instructions isn’t a bad idea at all.
But I can tell you that in most EMS scenarios, patients have very little say-so on “which ER” they’ll be taken to, if the care involves Paramedic- as opposed to EMT-level, care.
There are several reasons why this is so. Most hospitals are not trauma centers. Most have no burn units or advanced pediatric units. Not all can handle a surgical patient at night, and many don’t provide the advanced cardiac care anti-clotting protocols.
And because of the almost unbelievable volume of citizens who show up at the ER for less-than-real problems, as well as the off-the-chart number of folks who are not here legally but are in need of some kind of assistance, ERs all across the country put out their “bypass us” status to Paramedic ambulances. In which case, it doesn’t matter whether the patient, the medics, or both, want a particular ER, it ain’t gonna happen.
Like I’ve said before. Our health care system has brought much of this vortex of crap upon itself.
I have a great book written a couple of decades ago about public health and its premise is that safe housing, food, and water are the most important factors in health.
Whenever there is a breach of the skin, cleanliness from the moment of injury is the most important factor in preventing insurance.
How and why was the little girl’s original skin breach not kept clean?
Blouise: She was at a small hospital in her community in Illinois. The ER doctor on duty was part of a group that staffed a few hospitals. It was the weekend. Many ER doctors work for staffing groups rather than a particular hospital.
There are a number of aspects that influenced this outcome, only some of which we know.
But one of them that we do know is that American health care & the pharmaceutical giants, invest ungodly amounts of time & money convincing the public that they are sick (when they’re often just fine) and that they “need” care (when they often don’t)
The end result is a perfect storm of an otherwise generally healthy population, now convinced that they are a mere test or pill or two away from being “unsick,” while flooding the delivery system to the point of sheer breakdown. Thus, triage suffers, which is an absolute key in treatment in these cases.
As far as the helicopter flight, it sounds as though the child was transported under ‘critical pediatric intensive care’ protocols, which are indeed expensive, although $26,000 does of course sound outrageous. It may well have included a peds specialist MD and a flight RN and medic, along with, for example, a portable hyperbaric unit to enclose the child.
I can report that no mode of transportation has a higher fatality rate per mile than life-flight-type helicopters, which are also seriously overused. So factored into the cost of the airlift is something like “$5000 at each end of the trip, just to start the propellers,” due to the now-mandated super inspections. And any guesses how much their insurance costs, prorated per flight?
Yes, there’s plenty we don’t know. But one thing we do know is that we’ve created a tumult, and it’s the innocent who often pay the ultimate price.
And many of us in the trenches as damned well embarrassed by it.
SwM,
I am very sorry to hear that about your Mother.
Whenever my husband needs the ER, I purposely use a small hospital down the road a piece as I know the ER doctors and nurses are exceptionally good.
A pharmacist friend of ours and his wife have a document that they carry with them at all times designating a particular hospital they are to be admitted to in case of an emergency. It is not one the big, well known ones.
Dr. Harris,
Frankly, let’s not give a damn … 😉
Gyges,
I flung “rectal orifice” at frank when he insulted Rufus Johnson (and me)… poo emerges from a rectal orifice … we partnered in a logical progression.
Blouise,
I feel the need to defend good prose where ever I find it. Plus, I wanted to say “flung poo.”
lol
Brian,
If I may be anti-frank, you are something else, buddy. Keep up the good work.
frankly, I explore various methods of communication because I rarely find one that works as I might anticipate it would. Trying to please everyone always seems to end up pleasing no one, so, I start with the plan to please no one, perhaps I will make sense to someone and someone may be pleased and it pleases me to need not know in advanced who will be pleased or displeased and this is a silly demonstration of my having the capability to write in ways plausibly wrongfully done, by not separating thought fragments as I would were I as though I have been successfully fragged. And this paragraph was written with intent that it be neither read, nor written.
As for that Ph.D., P.E. silliness, Ph.D. is “teacher of philosophy” and P.E. is Professional Engineer. However, alternative interpretations are possible.
How about, Pacifist hatefully Derogated, Positing Extenuation? Would that, if I may be frank, be better?
Oh, no. I made a terrible mistake, how simply awful. I cannot frank, because I am not a Member of Congress, and therefore, have no franking privilege entitlement.
Frankly, I apologize for my franking blunder.
I heard that, in Boston, “r” and “u” may be similarly pronounced in some words. A matronly pillar of the Boston elite called a cohort with news from her son’s school. The second matronly elite heard the first one say, “My son’s school just called and told me that my son is artistic.” Said the second matronly elite, “Oh, that’s wonderful.” Dejected, the first matronly elite attempted rectification of the misunderstanding, saying, “No, not artistic, autistic.” and the second matronly elite heard, “No, not artistic, artistic,” and asked, “What’s the difference?”
My autistic humour may not be your artistic humor. Me sorry?
Gyges,
I would venture the opinion that Dr. Harris has faced more demons in his life than any poster on this blog … and he’s emerged triumphant … frank’s opinion of him is one formed in total ignorance.
Step A infections can happen to healthy adults too.
http://www.healthlessonsonline.com/strep-a/