Tale of last 90 minutes of woman's life [Los Angeles' King Hospital ignores patient to death]

Los Angeles Times ^ | 20 May 2007 | Charles Ornstein

[John Jorsett]

Later in the article is this compassionate statement by David Janssen, LA county's chief administrative officer:

Janssen said he was concerned that the incident would divert attention from preparing the hospital for a crucial review in six weeks that is to determine whether it can regain federal funding.

If the hospital fails, it could be forced to close.

"It certainly isn't going to help," Janssen said.

Gives you a lump in your throat, doesn't it?

[calex59]

I don’t believe most of this report. I believe this is another attempt to build sympathy for illegals.

[Howard Jarvis Admirer]

When did they start the Hillarycare program at that hospital?

[Aria]

it said she was a California native.

[Mr. K]

I have sympathy, but is there more to this story? Is there any previous history with this woman? If you cry wolf too often you can’t complain when people finally ignore you.

JUST ASKIN’ (I have leanred long ago to not accept one side of the story)

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

You must think of the job loss in the “Community!” To hell with patients the issue being jobs for the social incompetents. Where are your priorities?

[jocon307]

Very disturbing. I wonder about the “boyfriend” taking a powder as this woman was being arrested. But of course, whatever her crime, death was not the penalty. And fine, blame the triage nurse, but she was not the only poerson present.

[svcw]

I agree. If it doesn’t make sense....smells like a fish story to me.

[Maynerd]

I find this story hard to believe. Obviously a single payer government run VA like system will solve all of our nation’s health care problems. /s

[toothfairy86]

It’s a shame she didn’t try to go to a different hospital the second time around.

[Maynerd]

I find this story hard to believe. Obviously a single payer government run VA like system will solve all of our nation’s health care problems. /s

[KoRn]

There has to be more to this story than revealed in this article. I can’t imagine an ER staff just letting someone go like that. If this really happened as it was written, this lady’s next of kin is going to get a huge boost to their bank account.

[Santa Fe_Conservative]

Illegal or not(it didn’t say that she was) hospital neglect does happen, and I’ve heard countless tales of other situations such as this one.

[FormerACLUmember]

And expect a big malpractice jackpot justice suit, which will only further reduce the funds for the collapsed ER system.

Believe it or not, LA had the top trauma care ER systems on earth 30 years ago. Now destroyed by illegal aliens, corrupt managed care, and crooked John Edwards shysters the system in LA (and soon the rest of the US) has totally disintegrated.

The dream of many doctors is to have nothing whatsoever to do with any unreimbursed malpractice nightmare ER.

[squarebarb]

But not laying on the floor writhing.

This does sound fishy.

However if they have a security camera showing the woman on the floor and people walking around her that’s different.

But somehow I am suspicious.

[NonValueAdded]

Ping for your perspective. Could this be a case of frequent flyer who never read the story of “the boy who cried wolf?” (not that it excuses the ER’s conduct). Would a facility such as yours conduct its own incident review of a nationally publicized incident such as this under the “there but for the competence of our staff goes us” premise?

[basil]

Having worked for yours in the Emergency Room of several large hospitals, I don't see it happening as told here, either. Of course there are things left out of the story.

I can tell you that so many of the people who use the ER as their doctor's office do learn to work the system. I can remember people walking in and faking heart attacks just to get to the front of the line--when, in actuality, they were suffering from some ailment like a sore throat. It's a very hard call, sometimes-and the fact that the lady had already been there 3 times that day tells me that A: the doctors who saw her misdiagnosed her or B: Something about her had given the ER personnel the idea that she wasn't really sick, that she was gaming the system, for whatever reason.

Either way, it's too bad the lady died---and will be interesting to see what the autopsy shows. If the ER personnel were negligent and either misdiagnosed or failed to diagnose what her problem was, that can be held against them. They will have to be able to show that the right tests were run, and that the results of the tests didn't show anything threatening.

[El Gran Salseron]

A direct copy/paste from the story on the L.A. Times web site:

"Rodriguez, a California native, performed odd jobs and lived alternately with different relatives."

Why would you assume that the article is to garner sympathy and support for illegals if the poor woman, who was treated as an inconvenience, is a CA native?