WOMAN DIES AFTER 45 MINUTES OF LAYING ON THE FLOOR IN A HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM!!
Does it sound like I am screaming at you?
This is how the news media WANTS you to feel.
Yes this story is tragic and yes someone dropped the ball big time. But before jumping on the bandwagon look beyond the media hype.
The janitors were critisized for mopping up the blood around the victim but doing nothing to help her. OK they are janitors not doctors. Mopping up bodily fluids is part of their job. Would you want the janitor to diagnosis and treat you?
The dispatchers were critisized for not sending an ambulance to transfer this woman to another hospital. First of all when the boyfriend of the victim first called they had to transfer him to a Spanish speaking agent. This caused a delay.
Now look at this from the dispatchers POV. I have a friend who is a dispatcher. They get calls ranging from getting someone's cat out of a tree to reports of cars being parked too long on a street. These calls come through the 911 emergency line.
Pretend you are the dispatcher. You get a call from a pay phone at one hospital to transfer a patient to a different hospital. What would you think? That maybe someone is overreacting? That you have 15 other calls on hold? That 5 of those 15 calls are in regards to shooting, stabbings, and violence against children.
The police were critisized for arresting the victim because she had an outstanding warrant for parole violation. Again they are doing their jobs. They are not doctors. They are not medical professionals. Suppose this same situation had happened and the woman had recovered and was released from the hospital. Suppose the arrest warrant had been for rape or murder and the police failed to act on it? There would be a public outcry that the police hadn't done their jobs.
To the hospital staff. There is no excuse for their behavior.
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Comments: 18
Kristen as for your question....having worked in a hospital....this woman was vomiting and died from a perforted bowel...which as I understand it most likely caused by some sort of ulcer...ulcers have a mortality rate of 9-26%. Now not that I am excusing anyone but this hospital is in the Watts district so can you imagine how many shooting and stabbing victims they were also treating?
Jeff exactly what I was trying to say. Everyone has heard this story but how many people can tell me how many soldiers were killed in Iraq last week?
Ron shades of gray everywhere...you just have to look for it.
Sarah thanks.
When my daughter got her fingers cut off in a horrible accident. I shudder to remember. We sat in the waiting room for what seemed like days. Holding her fingers together with a dish towel. Blood was everywhere. I kept getting up and begging the admissions people to send out a doctor for her. It was agonizing... my poor little baby. The good news is that her fingers were reattached but that was after an ambulance picked her up and rushed her to Scripps.
Critical thinking is especially important. As I read the article on MSNBC and it was describing that she died in the wheelchair as the police were wheeling her out, it made me think about the fact that some of the other articles made it sound like she was dying on the floor in a pool of blood and that hospital staff saw that and ignored it. While I agree that someone in severe pain needs immediate attention, I've working in hospitals long enough to know that with the amount of people in an ER these days, a lot of the triage is done on the visual evaluation of the patient before anyone really hears the patient's description of pain. As you point out, if there are two docs on staff and three gunshot wounds, someone who is not obviously bleeding will be lower on the triage list than the gunshot victims. Not because hospital staff doesn't want to take care of them, but because there are only so many hands.
Another aspect of this tragedy, though, should we choose to really use critical thinking is one of my favorite things to point out during the holidays every year. People get so excited over Christmas and sing their songs of good will toward men, but spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on new clothes, gameboys (or whatever the latest thing is these days), bicycles, TVs, pets, while walking past homeless people. Like it or not, we are a society that tends to look the other way when we feel we can't or don't want to help. We sing Peace On Earth, as our young people go off to war. Hmmmm, I guess I'm saying we are a society steeped in Denial. Hospital staff are just humans who are part of our society.
Jesse great comment. You have to look beyond the hype and use a little common sense to get the "real" story. Yes this is tragic...yes it has left her family heartbroken. But how many people are killed by drunk drivers...how many people are saved because a doctor or nurse was there to treat them. And frankly this woman is no saint. The media will try and make her out to be. The fact of the matter is she violated her parole (which means she fairly recently got let out of prison) and we dont know what was happening in the ER at the time.
The police had no business arresting someone for a probation violation when she was in the ER vomiting blood. What exactly were they going to do, arrest her, take her to the police station, book and process her and then take her back to the same hospital they arrested her at? There is plenty of blame to go around in thsi instance. I have worked in a hospital and a jail and it appears no one did their job in a rational, common sense manner in this case. There will probably be law suits filed over this death that will cost the taxpayers plenty.
As for being arrested on an outstanding warrant, the woman wasn't going anywhere vomiting blood so there was no sense in trying to make an arrest. Just notify the cops before she's discharged and then cuff her and stuff her.
Most of the media, especially the television, in Los Angeles and now what I hear in Las Vegas, is all hype! I've all but ceased listening to them on the air. This incident occurred in Los Angeles and the Las Vegas media ran with it, too This particular hospital has a long history with the media, and it's changed names over the years to no avail. The place needs a good revamp in my opinion; I used to go there when I lived in L.A.
Liberal Joe yes a person vomiting blood is critical but arent car accident victims and stabbing and shooting victims and women in labor all critical...again before buying into all the hype look at all the facts.
Debi my mind works like this. Thanks for the compliments. I dont spend a lot of time on most of my articles they are mostly my opinion.