11 ms·

US hospital told family their daughter had checked out when in fact she'd died

405 points by howard941 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> an autopsy that could have indicated whether there had been medical malpractice associated with her death was “rendered impossible”, according to the lawsuit This crosses into criminal liability.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  This is just horrible but I’m not surprised since I have read so many stories of malpractice recently, from the skull flap thing to the Texas hospital triple booking surgeons to other stuff
  - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
    Triple booking surgeons? Do they think patients in need of surgeries are just going to up and cancel, and hospitals are behaving like airlines?
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Lack of accountability leads to outcomes. As a patient, you don't know your trust is being violated (in this specific scenario). https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/texas-heart-surgeons-accused-of-double-booking-surgeries-delegating-dangerous-procedures/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/texas-heart-surgeo... https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/texas-medical-center-institutions-agree-pay-15m-record-settlement-involving-concurrent https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/texas-medical-center-in...
      - malfist 2y ago
        Texas also has "tort reform", limiting you to a maximum of $250k in damages. Good luck suing a big hospital for malpractice, you gotta pay the lawyer too out of that $250k.
        mandmandam 2y ago
        > you gotta pay the lawyer too out of that $250k On average, a medical malpractice case might require anywhere from 500 to 1,000 hours of legal work, with more complex cases potentially requiring over 2,000 hours. Average lawyer cost in 2022 was $313/hr. So we're basically looking at, generously, 750 hrs x $300, or $225k to the lawyer. And that's just one side - the hospital presumably pays near the same. ... Huh. Once again, I am stunned at the American legal system being so obviously and cartoonishly evil.
        arcticbull 2y ago
        The Texas legal system to be specific.
        ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
        Texas is probably limiting malpractice suit damages because they are a significant contributor to our insane healthcare costs. The math above where a hospital is out a minimum of $200k for any suit that isn't thrown out is not restricted to Texas; this is a national issue with some Texas duck tape slapped on.
        vkou 2y ago
        They are more likely limiting malpractice suit damages because hospitals and clinics donate to political campaigns, but people hurt by medical malpractice don't. The end result is that doctors are essentially lawsuit-proof (as the minimum cost of a suit exceeds the maximum possible recovery) in Texas, and you have no recourse if yours was at fault. It's a beautiful system.
    - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
      https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/06/25/baylor-college-of-medicine-settlement/74208300007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/06/25/baylor... In Texas, three hospitals (Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center (BSLMC), Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Surgical Associates of Texas P.A. (SAT)) agreed to pay $15m as part of a settlement with the DOJ. These doctors/surgeons were booked for multiple simultaneous procedures that they could not have possibly conducted, even though they recorded things to make it look like they conducted all the surgeries. In reality many procedures were performed by unqualified residents and other caretakers and not who the patient was told would be performing the procedure. > To make it seem as if the teaching physicians were present during the "entire" operation, they would lie on medical records, the court filings say. The medical staff also would not tell patients that the surgeon planned on leaving the room to perform another operation, the documents continued. This only came out because of a whistleblower, and because the DOJ pursued it. It is nearly impossible for a patient to know if they are wronged or harmed this way because they are put under for these procedures, and because friends/family are typically not allowed to observe or record anything (likely to prevent accountability). And then there’s the cost of lawsuits, the stress, and limitations under law (like tort reform in Texas) - it’s just lucky that this was pursued by a government agency (DOJ). > Under the False Claims Act, the private whistleblower who reported the allegations will receive over $3 million from the settlement, the Justice Department said. We need more incentives like this, but we also need greater penalties and jail time for the practitioners and literally everyone who knew. They should be investigating who was in the room, what was recorded in logs, and who accessed records, and go after all of them. Right now, this settlement achieves nothing. Some articles claimed that these hospitals made more than $150 million off these procedures for which they are settling the lawsuit for just $15 million.
    - SkyPuncher 2y ago
      More common than you think. A lot of hospital care is done by residents with surgeons overseeing and stepping in for the most difficult parts. Our healthcare system would literally collapse without residents doing the heavy lifting. It won’t change until we stop artificially limiting the supply of doctors or give mid level practitioners more power.
      - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
        Or both, both would be nice. Until then I guess we all just have to make sure we never need to use the healthcare system we all pay so much for.
      - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
        Yep professional medical organizations and universities are causing this artificial supply limit to benefit those who are already practicing and part of this ecosystem.
        ben_w 2y ago
        Without claiming the two systems have the same limiting factors, the UK health system is also struggling, and there the staff shortage is the government's limits on (1) how many spots universities have, (2) immigration. This is despite health in general, and the HNS in particular, being a major source of interest for the electorate.
        OJFord 2y ago
        Alternatively (or also) pay scales and emigration. There are doctors leaving for Australia (which advertised golden handshakes & Australian lifestyle in the UK to UK doctors) and nurses for better pay/conditions in private care facilities; it's not (just) a supply of trained people at source issue. Salaries are also much more compressed than in North America - UK junior doctors generally earn more than NA residents, but then not that much more (maybe 4-5x from lowest to highest, not >10x to reach hundreds of thousands) as consultants (attendings). Locum pay & additional private work can make up for some of that, but probably not all, and I assume similar could be done in NA if you wanted to earn more (or open their own practice, pharma sponsorship, etc.) It's probably true in general (relatively compressed salary ranges) actually, not just in medicine.
    - pyuser583 2y ago
      It’s absolutely insane how many people don’t show up for doctors appointments, including surgery.
  - spondylosaurus 2y ago
    Dare I ask about "the skull flap thing"?
    - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
      https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/lawsuit-claims-emory-lost-part-of-mans-skull-then-charged-him-19k-to-replace-it/ https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/lawsuit-claims-emory-lost-pa... Basically they had to cut into someone’s skull as part of a surgery. They did not label and catalog skull parts properly. Because they lost the skull part they had to use a synthetic skull flap, and they charged the patient for it. The synthetic flap caused an infection. The patient was on the hook for something like $150K for all of this (the synthetic part, the procedure of placing it, the infection) which was due to the hospital’s own criminal negligence. An investigated showed that the hospital was not properly labeling and cataloging parts for many patients and basically had a mess of random skull parts that would not make their way back to all those patients, so it is a systemic issue and not just an unfortunate one off mistake. All of this is alleged and there is a lawsuit pending, but it seems to me like the part about a systemic issue of mishandled parts is confirmed.
      - sva_ 2y ago
        Sounds like material for the next Dr. Death season. The first two seasons were both pretty great.
      - munificent 2y ago
        I'm just imagining some refrigerator in the nurse's breakroom with a big fiesta bowl of what looks like odd tortilla chips with a Post-In note labeled "skull bits do not eat".
      - ForOldHack 2y ago
        I hate when that happens: Obligatory. Lawyer: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?" Witness: "No." Lawyer: "Did you check for blood pressure?" Witness: "No." Lawyer: "Did you check for breathing?" Witness: "No." Lawyer: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?" Witness: "No." Lawyer: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?" Witness: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar." Lawyer: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?" Witness: "Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere."
  - jb1991 2y ago
    It's amazing how many stories like this come out of the U.S. Normally, one can say "you get what you pay for" but what American hospitals charge for this level of quality is so expensive compared to other countries.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - wil421 2y ago
      Anywhere with a hospital and medical care can have issues. Here’s a few high profile cases in the UK. https://www.howellslegal.co.uk/news/post/The-5-Largest-Personal-Injury-Claims-Ever-Made-in-the-UK- https://www.howellslegal.co.uk/news/post/The-5-Largest-Perso...
      - skeaker 2y ago
        I think the difference in this case isn't the quality but the cost for said quality.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jklinger410 2y ago
I'm glad we pay for the most expensive medical care in the world in the US. That's what keeps the quality so high.
- realo 2y ago
  Sorry but I think you pay for the most expensive _doctors_ in the world... It would seem that the actual care you receive is only remotely related to that.
  - pinkmuffinere 2y ago
    The comment you’re replying to was sarcastic, I think they probably strongly agree with you. (Not your fault not to notice though, sarcasm can be very subtle)
    - anonzzzies 2y ago
      It should have /s I guess, however, I am not native English and could not read that differently than /s.
bourbonjuggler 2y ago
"Dignity Health, which operates Mercy San Juan..." It appears they need a name change after this lawsuit
- LiquidSky 2y ago
  As usual when entities have these noble names, they don’t mean your or my dignity.
  - evantbyrne 2y ago
    Low quality places have the most absurd names in this country. For example, there is a trailer park nearby with a "Manor Lane". At least they put it by "Shady Lane" to balance expectations.
    - Aloha 2y ago
      any apartment complex that advertises 'luxury' is by definition not.
    - The_Blade 2y ago
      Blind date with the chancer We had oysters and dry lancers And the check when it arrived we went dutch, dutch, dutch, dutch A redder shade of neck on a whiter shade of trash And this emory board is giving me a rash I'm flat out You're so beautiful to look at when you cry Freeze, don't move You've been chosen as an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequel to your life
    - ljm 2y ago
      Sanatoriums, asylums, mental institutes, and retirement homes… all called Mount Pleasant.
      - diego_sandoval 2y ago
        M'unpleasant.
- 2y ago
HorizonXP 2y ago
I read the headline expecting that it was a simple misunderstanding or clerical error, with limited impact to within 24 hours. The article is so much worse and the headline buries the lede. I would be horrified. My condolences to the family.
- bluSCALE4 2y ago
  Completely agree. I can't imagine being lead on a wild goose chase looking for a loved one only to be told by police that said party lied to me. I guess there's a lesson here: talk with nurses. I'm sure some would toe the line but if something smells fishy, I'm sure someone will crack. Then again, maybe only one nurse would know the truth so it's may not be easy.
  - smcin 2y ago
    It's worse than that, it's like burying a double or even triple lede: - it's not just that the hospital told her family totally the wrong thing for a day or a year... - or even negligently cremated or buried her in a pauper's grave... - but they also mishandled the corpse, which IIUC is a misdemeanor (corpse desecration, which is a felony, might not apply), by shipping her decomposing body to an off-site warehouse morgue. - and failing to timely issue a death certificate or do an autopsy prevents determining whether there had been medical malpractice associated with her death.
    - ghostly_s 2y ago
      and they didn't even know she was dead - the death certificate was not completed until her body had been rotting in their facility for a year.
bluSCALE4 2y ago
I wonder if it's possible that she checked herself out but immediately died outside the hospital which would explain why the paper work was in order. I would not explain why after being ID'd, why family wasn't informed or how she was placed into offsite storage facility. Gross incompetence and criminal negligence. I hope the family gets the 5x the jury award as requested. Didn't know you could even do that.
- cogman10 2y ago
  > I wonder if it's possible that she checked herself out but immediately died outside the hospital I find that really unlikely. I mean, for starters, they had her body and knew it was her body in storage. That doesn't happen if they don't have IDs attached to the corpse. I find it unlikely that the hospital wouldn't be ringing the family like crazy because of a body they want to unload. Especially if they have the paperwork showing that she'd checked out. There'd be no reason not to almost immediately say "Hey, actually, we found her right outside the hospital dead, sorry for your loss". I'm guessing an obvious fuck up killed her like 10xing her insulin dosage by mistake. Or administering something other than insulin. And it wouldn't surprise me if, conveniently, 17 or 24 months just happens to be the retention policy for medical records.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    > And it wouldn't surprise me if, conveniently, 17 or 24 months just happens to be the retention policy for medical records. This was in California, where the law [0] is 7 years minimum, potentially more if the patient was a minor. AFAICT every state wants at least ~5 years of retention. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/california/22-CCR-72543 https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/california/22-CCR-72...
  - sonotathrowaway 2y ago
    Or they needed to keep the body long enough that any evidence of malpractice could be hidden.
- geor9e 2y ago
  Like she died and the medical examiner took her directly? It doesn't sound like it from this: "The 31-year-old died in the care of Mercy San Juan medical center in Sacramento in April 2023. The hospital shipped her body to a storage facility"
015a 2y ago
Hospital management: "What new system or form can we add so our liability is limited in this happening again? Just one more e-signature bro, it'll work this time I swear, this is the one, just one more."
- djmips 2y ago
  They'll get it added to your Disney+ subscription.
khaki54 2y ago
Crazy. I wonder if they made a mistake, somehow killing her, but thought she was indigent or mentally ill, and that's why they did all this. Then again, it sounds like she was treated many times by this hospital. I cannot fathom the circumstances where the actions after her death could have been a simple mistake, but they've had 16 months to come up with a story and destroy all the evidence, so we may never know the truth.
- primitivesuave 2y ago
  Honestly, this was the first thought I had when I read the article. I worked in this space for several years and interacted with many doctors - just like in any other professional industry, some people have stellar reputations that precede them, while a few are infamous for their malpractice and unethical behavior. The perverse incentive arises when a hospital has a publicized malpractice lawsuit or criminal investigation - everyone who works at that for-profit medical institution has an incentive to protect its reputation (i.e. its profitability). This has allowed "angel of death" doctors/nurses to kill hundreds of people over the years, since there isn't much incentive to dig too deeply into "excess mortality" statistics (a famous example being Harold Shipman who could have easily been detected 2 years and over 100 victims earlier). Covering up a case of medical malpractice by surreptitiously filling out discharge paperwork is certainly possible. A surprisingly large component of healthcare processes is to blindly trust that doctors are manually entering information truthfully and accurately. The fact that they couldn't locate her body for an entire year strongly suggests a criminal conspiracy to hide the body.
  - yosito 2y ago
    As a victim of medical malpractice, it's terrifying to me that someone could have killed me to cover it up.
jofer 2y ago
You'd be amazed how bad hospitals can be at keeping track of fairly critical things. I had a cousin who voluntarily checked himself into the hospital related to severe withdrawal symptoms (and had bouts of psychosis related to said with withdrawal - meth addictions are nasty). His mother stayed for awhile but had to leave for work. She was repeatedly guaranteed by multiple doctors and nurses that he could not check himself out and would be there for several days at least. They told her to come back the next morning. Late that night, he was discharged. Not even "he checked himself out". The hospital discharged him (and that's over an hour ride away from home, btw - no hospitals in rural areas these days). He had no phone and no wallet. According to staff, he tried to call his mother to pick him up, but couldn't remember her cell phone number (it had changed recently). He called his sister and left a message, but she was traveling and didn't get it until much later. According to the hospital, he tried to call several different numbers trying to get a ride home and they made him stop and made him leave. In a quite rough downtown area he was not familiar with. While clearly not in his right mind. At 2am. With no wallet, no phone, no nothing. The hospital had his mother's contact info. They did not give it to him even when he requested it. They did not attempt to contact her in any way. We still don't know what happened afterwards. His body was found four days later in the river and it had been there for awhile. Forcibly discharging someone under those circumstances and refusing to even contact their emergency contacts is beyond belief. I'm furious about it. Apparently it's common and not even something there's any recourse for.
- mrinfinitiesx 2y ago
  Reading that makes me incredibly outraged. I'm sorry that happened and your family had to go through that.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  When I was a teenageer a school counselor incorrectly perceived me to be in a crisis and had me sent to 72 hour hold (which stays on certain records for quite a while and can be incredibly disruptive, but that's besides the point) - for some reason I was sent almost 40 miles away in another county in a city I'd never been. The hospital doctors took one look at me and realized I didn't belong there, but to do a discharge apparently is a pretty lengthy process once this process is initiated - almost 20 hours later (again, being held completely against my will for no reason) they released me. I asked them where I was supposed to go and if I could call my dad. They said no, but they gave me two (2) bus tokens, which wasn't enough to get back where my car was parked at the school, plus I had no idea how to use the bus system in that county, and didn't have my glasses, phone, or wallet. I really don't know how long it took or how I made it, but many many hours later I made it back to my car. I had to beg for money and walk the last several miles once I recognized finally where I was. It really sucked, and ever since then I've had a great deal of sympathy for people that are churned through this terrible system and spit right back out with no dignity whatsoever, let alone empathy. This incident disrupted my life irreversibly (ended up missing tests and having to do a medical withdrawal from school, lost scholarships, etc) and derailed a lot of things I had wanted to do for many, many years. The hospital/medical care industrial complex doesn't optimize for empathy. They're just trying to get the bodies through as quickly as possible.
croes 2y ago
>Mercy San Juan hospital failed in its most fundamental duty to notify Jessie’s family of her death Despite the misconduct, I think saving people's lives is the most fundamental duty of a hospital.
- dgfitz 2y ago
  Yeah: “we failed at our one job” should have been IMMEDIATELY expressed to the family.
- layer8 2y ago
  There can be multiple most fundamental duties: https://proofwiki.org/wiki/Maximal_Element_need_not_be_Unique https://proofwiki.org/wiki/Maximal_Element_need_not_be_Uniqu...
  - vsuperpower2021 2y ago
    This is one of those things where people think that because they learned something in set theory 101 or intro to computers that it maps perfectly to real life situations.
    - ghufran_syed 2y ago
      Ok, let me translate it into non-math for you - there can be a goal that is a "highest priority" for the organisation in the sense that no other goal is a higher priority, and yet there are other goals for the organization that are equal to it in priority. Isn't "a Maximal Element need not be Unique" a more elegant and much more succinct way of saying the same thing?
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    Look, that's a great proof and all but it has nothing to do with the situation at hand. Just because mathematics say there can be two maximal elements doesn't mean morality agrees - and this is the domain of morality, not mathematics.
    - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
EE84M3i 2y ago
This might sound silly, but technically speaking how does this kind of notification work in relation to HIPAA? Is there some kind of a carve out that allows hospitals to tell your family you've "been discharged against medical advice"? How does next of kin notification work for death? To put it another way, clearly the outcome in this story was unacceptable, but what was the correct outcome?
- primitivesuave 2y ago
  You're conflating information privacy guidelines (i.e. HIPAA) with next-of-kin reporting which is usually specified by state law. If you check out the probate process which distributes an estate after death, it can vary considerably from state to state and has a lot more judicial involvement. HIPAA is not an enforced statute or law, it's a set of civil rights guidelines which allow hefty fines to be levied by OCR (Office of Civil Rights) when a violation is reported and investigated. HIPAA does specifically allow for the sharing of PHI with family and friends of a with substantial leeway given to medical professionals to document their reasoning for sharing information if it is "in the patient's best interest". In the hypothetical scenario where concerned family/friends are inquiring about a discharge, it would be perfectly acceptable to share certain details of the discharge if the healthcare provider is willing to document and possibly defend their decision. In this case, not reporting to next of kin was certainly not in the patient's best interest and a prima facie case of misconduct. As someone who sat at the intersection of health and law for several years, I can't see any possible legal justification or loophole for the hospital to avoid a hefty settlement. As some of the other comments on this thread suggest, this shocking oversight may not be an isolated case, so a hefty monetary penalty is the only realistic way to force the other for-profit health systems of America to implement better processes for this.
  - EE84M3i 2y ago
    I see, that makes sense, thanks! So, after the patient died, what is the mechanism by which the family should have been contacted? Later, if that failed and the family came to ask the hospital, the correct answer was "they're dead", not "we can't tell you" (and especially not "they were discharged against medical advice"!). How does the hospital authenticate and authorize the inquiry party? Edit: also, is being dead PHI?
tppiotrowski 2y ago
Personal story: A couple of years ago I climbed Mt Whitney in California. One of the climbers that day was from the east coast and failed to show up for work a few days later. The family became concerned and called the car rental agency in Las Vegas where he flew to and rented his car. The agency said the car had been returned. After another day of him missing they called the car rental agency again to confirm and once again the agency said the car was in the lot. The next day the rangers found the car was still parked in the Mt Whitney parking lot and search and rescue was finally dispatched. In this case I believe it didn't make a difference because the climber appeared to die from acute injury on the mountain the day of his climb but in another scenario maybe those 2 days would've been the difference between being rescued or dying from exposure.
- pyuser583 2y ago
  I recently faced a personal catastrophe because a low ranking clerical worker mixed up a form. I’m not mad about it. I’m mad there’s no apology because the company insists they did nothing wrong. Another company, the one reading the form, is responsible for services rendered in regards to the form. Clearly not the form-fillers fault.
  - aidenn0 2y ago
    Oh so many systems take "pass the buck" to an insane level. My employer switched insurance providers recently. Twice we were referred to a specialist for one of my kids and each time it took about a week for the referral to be approved (apparently the PCP referring you isn't enough with this HMO). The only thing that has changed is my HMO; the kids still have the same pediatrician with the same office staff for which referrals were never a problem in the past. However, the insurance company made sure to tell me that they are not the ones delaying it, because it's technically the administrative department of my pediatrician that has to do the referral review. The fact that insurance company mandates that the referral review must be performed by a licensed nurse and follow a byzantine process, of course, has nothing to do with the delay.
victor106 2y ago
> according to a civil lawsuit against the hospital. Shouldn't this be a criminal case?
- ikiris 2y ago
  Only if a prosecutor wants it to be.
- onlypassingthru 2y ago
  Only if the likelihood of guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt, which the DA may not want to try. In civil suits the bar is lower as it's only a requirement for a preponderance of evidence. Odds are the hospital will settle this out of court for an undisclosed sum because they can't realistically have their records on the matter brought to light. Was it medical malpractice?! We'll never know.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    >Odds are the hospital will settle this out of court for an undisclosed sum because they can't realistically have their records on the matter brought to light IMO it should not be legally possible to settle something this dire out of court. You shouldn't be able to bury anything simply by paying a large sum.
- bpodgursky 2y ago
  What specific criminal laws are you suggesting were broken? Obviously a lot of crap happened here but there's not a legal obligation to be helpful to next-of-kin. Suing for vague "damages" is going to be far more productive.
  - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
    Taking her remains without the knowledge and consent of her next of kin is surely illegal. If I put a corpse in a warehouse for a year while the family was begging me to tell them where their loved one was, I would expect to face criminal negligence charges at the least.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
maronato 2y ago
This is very sad. My condolences to the family. Reading the timeline, I can’t help but speculate that there’s a darker side to this. Two days before “checking out”, the daughter called the mom to say she was better and was about to leave. Soon after that, something bad happens (possibly malpractice) and she dies. An autopsy would reveal the true cause of death, so the hospital quietly ships her to an off-site morgue, doesn’t even fill a death certificate, and fabricates her checking out. Now the body is beyond decomposed and an autopsy is impossible. The hospital claims it was a simple mix-up and gets away with a bit of bad press and a negligence charge.
- polartx 2y ago
  I was reading something recently about pleading the fifth, (like if someone at the hospital was called to testify), I read that in criminal cases, pleading the fifth could not be used against the defendant. However in civil cases, jurors are instructed to assume their refusal to testify would implicate their guilt. I didn’t verify what I read, so take it with a grain of salt.
consp 2y ago
It says she was taken in due to a diabetic episode. What on earth is that? Hypo/hyperglycaemia? You'd have to have extremely poorly managed type 1 diabetes for that to become fatal without a massive screwup at that age.
- GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
  this sounds very close to victim blaming in a country where insulin is not considered a human right, let alone the fact that many people in America only effectively have access to human insulin instead of analogs with higher efficacy and shorter absorption time. also people can develop t1d well into adulthood. we don’t have any information about this persons life nor should we need any. this event is just one more reason i’m terrified to be diabetic in this country. honestly the way you posed this question is awful and I invite you to reconsider your intent. hopefully the benefit of my doubt is not misplaced.
theparanoid 2y ago
My classmate from nursing school is an RN at that hospital, I'm not surprised.
register 2y ago
If this happened in any of the majour european countries we would have that news in the headlines of newspapers and newscasts for several days. How come that is not the same in the US even more so given that the health sector is mostly privatized and therefore "should be" more efficient ( when in fact is clear that it is a complete failure compared to European standards) ? .
- snowpid 2y ago
  I think it is worth pointing out that many European health systems do have strong private elements (e.g. most of them pay pharma companies for making medicine) and NHS in the UK as a goverment focused health system is still quiet bad compared to other European countries. But to your original question: As you are hanging around these website, I notice (and you too maybe), that even the most educated Americans have an "only American" world view. They consider it is the best country in the world anyway and don't care about other parts of the world. In German news on German problems (e.g. Digitalisation) journalist sometimes point other countries as a positive example or role model (here Estonia or rarely Ukraine). On American problems it does not happen and we (as a I assume you live on my site of the Atlantic) just nodding our head why it does not change. It would need to change a deeply entrenced attitude. On this discussion page here they dont discuss how other countries do it. Not a single example how to make it better. Because the US is on the top of the hill anyway.
  - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
    I am an American and have lived most of my life in the US, but I have lived overseas for the last 12 years. My experience is that Americans are very insular and do not know much about other countries because American-owned new media focuses on US stories, most major social media sites are American-owned and overwhelmingly populated with other Americans, etc. Americans are insulated simply because the information sectors they have access to are dominated by American businesses. Hell, even the Internet itself is American. (This is the same reason that non-American countries are also overwhelmed by American issues/news/culture.) It is not because Americans think they are superior, and it does not cause Americans to think they are superior. Degree of insulation and sense of superiority are independent variables, and Americans (especially middle-aged and younger) are actually quite low on the sense-of-superiority scale — certainly way, way lower than most Europeans in my experience. (This is not intended as a slight against Europeans; you have very good reasons to prefer Europe to the US.) Every American I know has serious complaints about the US and is acutely aware that other countries leave the US in the dust in several of areas, including (though certainly not limited to) healthcare. There are of course some nationalist extremists out there who will argue otherwise, and they can be especially noisy on the internet because that is the nature of extremists, but these are not the average people you meet walking down an American street. Most Americans may not know the ins and outs of other countries' healthcare systems, and therefore may not speak in any detail about those systems on American media sites like this one, but that isn't because they think theirs is the best. They may not ponder the ways that Estonia or Germany has the better healthcare system, but that's because they would be over the moon for anything half as good as either of them. The USA's political flaws unfortunately run very deep and are in no way the fault of the modern American people. The US Constitution is a very old, very hard-to-change document that was designed primarily to make the US government as stable as possible — at the cost of responsiveness to democratic will. Basically all of the genuine democracies (I am not talking about dictatorships that larp as democracies) created after American democracy were designed to correct the flaws of the US Constitution: the first-past-the-post voting system, the extreme difficulty of adding amendments, etc. That's why they have nice things.
BodyCulture 2y ago
I recently had an opportunity to learn something about software used in hospitals and it was a shock. Are you laughing about the JS or web developer meme as a symbol for clueless people? Well, I need to tell you that every JS or web dev is a code guru compared to the guys I have seen in medical / hospital software. While your web dev has a very good idea about infrastructure and code maintenance these guys are usually clueless about CI, git, secrets management etc. but still they now all want to migrate their stuff to azure, because it’s cool… to say the truth I didn’t understand the reason why they want to. People that are basically relying on Microsoft wizard based development. Shocking was that this was not only some bureaucracy software, but systems that are used for actual operations and patient management. I guess that many people died already because windows developers but nobody did a systematic investigation so we don’t know.
stbenjam 2y ago
I hope they get awarded 100x what they’re asking for.
black_13 2y ago
[dead]
louthy 2y ago
I can’t be the only person that thought about the Arrested Development ‘literal doctor’ [1] when reading the headline? [1] https://youtu.be/0BUBd9dQvtY https://youtu.be/0BUBd9dQvtY
fallinghawks 2y ago
My neighbor, who has bipolar mania, was in the hospital for a 72-hour hold. She wanted to leave, naturally, and a "patient advocate" made it happen "against the doctor's orders." So I'm trying to figure out how the choices of someone who cannot soundly judge their own condition take priority over that of the doctor in charge of them.

405 points by howard941 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

> an autopsy that could have indicated whether there had been medical malpractice associated with her death was “rendered impossible”, according to the lawsuit This crosses into criminal liability.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
This is just horrible but I’m not surprised since I have read so many stories of malpractice recently, from the skull flap thing to the Texas hospital triple booking surgeons to other stuff
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago
  Triple booking surgeons? Do they think patients in need of surgeries are just going to up and cancel, and hospitals are behaving like airlines?
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Lack of accountability leads to outcomes. As a patient, you don't know your trust is being violated (in this specific scenario). https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/texas-heart-surgeons-accused-of-double-booking-surgeries-delegating-dangerous-procedures/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/texas-heart-surgeo... https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/texas-medical-center-institutions-agree-pay-15m-record-settlement-involving-concurrent https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/texas-medical-center-in...
    - malfist 2y ago
      Texas also has "tort reform", limiting you to a maximum of $250k in damages. Good luck suing a big hospital for malpractice, you gotta pay the lawyer too out of that $250k.
      - mandmandam 2y ago
        > you gotta pay the lawyer too out of that $250k On average, a medical malpractice case might require anywhere from 500 to 1,000 hours of legal work, with more complex cases potentially requiring over 2,000 hours. Average lawyer cost in 2022 was $313/hr. So we're basically looking at, generously, 750 hrs x $300, or $225k to the lawyer. And that's just one side - the hospital presumably pays near the same. ... Huh. Once again, I am stunned at the American legal system being so obviously and cartoonishly evil.
        arcticbull 2y ago
        The Texas legal system to be specific.
        ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
        Texas is probably limiting malpractice suit damages because they are a significant contributor to our insane healthcare costs. The math above where a hospital is out a minimum of $200k for any suit that isn't thrown out is not restricted to Texas; this is a national issue with some Texas duck tape slapped on.
        vkou 2y ago
        They are more likely limiting malpractice suit damages because hospitals and clinics donate to political campaigns, but people hurt by medical malpractice don't. The end result is that doctors are essentially lawsuit-proof (as the minimum cost of a suit exceeds the maximum possible recovery) in Texas, and you have no recourse if yours was at fault. It's a beautiful system.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/06/25/baylor-college-of-medicine-settlement/74208300007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/06/25/baylor... In Texas, three hospitals (Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center (BSLMC), Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Surgical Associates of Texas P.A. (SAT)) agreed to pay $15m as part of a settlement with the DOJ. These doctors/surgeons were booked for multiple simultaneous procedures that they could not have possibly conducted, even though they recorded things to make it look like they conducted all the surgeries. In reality many procedures were performed by unqualified residents and other caretakers and not who the patient was told would be performing the procedure. > To make it seem as if the teaching physicians were present during the "entire" operation, they would lie on medical records, the court filings say. The medical staff also would not tell patients that the surgeon planned on leaving the room to perform another operation, the documents continued. This only came out because of a whistleblower, and because the DOJ pursued it. It is nearly impossible for a patient to know if they are wronged or harmed this way because they are put under for these procedures, and because friends/family are typically not allowed to observe or record anything (likely to prevent accountability). And then there’s the cost of lawsuits, the stress, and limitations under law (like tort reform in Texas) - it’s just lucky that this was pursued by a government agency (DOJ). > Under the False Claims Act, the private whistleblower who reported the allegations will receive over $3 million from the settlement, the Justice Department said. We need more incentives like this, but we also need greater penalties and jail time for the practitioners and literally everyone who knew. They should be investigating who was in the room, what was recorded in logs, and who accessed records, and go after all of them. Right now, this settlement achieves nothing. Some articles claimed that these hospitals made more than $150 million off these procedures for which they are settling the lawsuit for just $15 million.
  - SkyPuncher 2y ago
    More common than you think. A lot of hospital care is done by residents with surgeons overseeing and stepping in for the most difficult parts. Our healthcare system would literally collapse without residents doing the heavy lifting. It won’t change until we stop artificially limiting the supply of doctors or give mid level practitioners more power.
    - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
      Or both, both would be nice. Until then I guess we all just have to make sure we never need to use the healthcare system we all pay so much for.
    - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
      Yep professional medical organizations and universities are causing this artificial supply limit to benefit those who are already practicing and part of this ecosystem.
      - ben_w 2y ago
        Without claiming the two systems have the same limiting factors, the UK health system is also struggling, and there the staff shortage is the government's limits on (1) how many spots universities have, (2) immigration. This is despite health in general, and the HNS in particular, being a major source of interest for the electorate.
        OJFord 2y ago
        Alternatively (or also) pay scales and emigration. There are doctors leaving for Australia (which advertised golden handshakes & Australian lifestyle in the UK to UK doctors) and nurses for better pay/conditions in private care facilities; it's not (just) a supply of trained people at source issue. Salaries are also much more compressed than in North America - UK junior doctors generally earn more than NA residents, but then not that much more (maybe 4-5x from lowest to highest, not >10x to reach hundreds of thousands) as consultants (attendings). Locum pay & additional private work can make up for some of that, but probably not all, and I assume similar could be done in NA if you wanted to earn more (or open their own practice, pharma sponsorship, etc.) It's probably true in general (relatively compressed salary ranges) actually, not just in medicine.
  - pyuser583 2y ago
    It’s absolutely insane how many people don’t show up for doctors appointments, including surgery.
- spondylosaurus 2y ago
  Dare I ask about "the skull flap thing"?
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/lawsuit-claims-emory-lost-part-of-mans-skull-then-charged-him-19k-to-replace-it/ https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/lawsuit-claims-emory-lost-pa... Basically they had to cut into someone’s skull as part of a surgery. They did not label and catalog skull parts properly. Because they lost the skull part they had to use a synthetic skull flap, and they charged the patient for it. The synthetic flap caused an infection. The patient was on the hook for something like $150K for all of this (the synthetic part, the procedure of placing it, the infection) which was due to the hospital’s own criminal negligence. An investigated showed that the hospital was not properly labeling and cataloging parts for many patients and basically had a mess of random skull parts that would not make their way back to all those patients, so it is a systemic issue and not just an unfortunate one off mistake. All of this is alleged and there is a lawsuit pending, but it seems to me like the part about a systemic issue of mishandled parts is confirmed.
    - sva_ 2y ago
      Sounds like material for the next Dr. Death season. The first two seasons were both pretty great.
    - munificent 2y ago
      I'm just imagining some refrigerator in the nurse's breakroom with a big fiesta bowl of what looks like odd tortilla chips with a Post-In note labeled "skull bits do not eat".
    - ForOldHack 2y ago
      I hate when that happens: Obligatory. Lawyer: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?" Witness: "No." Lawyer: "Did you check for blood pressure?" Witness: "No." Lawyer: "Did you check for breathing?" Witness: "No." Lawyer: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?" Witness: "No." Lawyer: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?" Witness: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar." Lawyer: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?" Witness: "Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere."
- jb1991 2y ago
  It's amazing how many stories like this come out of the U.S. Normally, one can say "you get what you pay for" but what American hospitals charge for this level of quality is so expensive compared to other countries.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - wil421 2y ago
    Anywhere with a hospital and medical care can have issues. Here’s a few high profile cases in the UK. https://www.howellslegal.co.uk/news/post/The-5-Largest-Personal-Injury-Claims-Ever-Made-in-the-UK- https://www.howellslegal.co.uk/news/post/The-5-Largest-Perso...
    - skeaker 2y ago
      I think the difference in this case isn't the quality but the cost for said quality.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jklinger410 2y ago

I'm glad we pay for the most expensive medical care in the world in the US. That's what keeps the quality so high.

realo 2y ago
Sorry but I think you pay for the most expensive _doctors_ in the world... It would seem that the actual care you receive is only remotely related to that.
- pinkmuffinere 2y ago
  The comment you’re replying to was sarcastic, I think they probably strongly agree with you. (Not your fault not to notice though, sarcasm can be very subtle)
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    It should have /s I guess, however, I am not native English and could not read that differently than /s.

bourbonjuggler 2y ago

"Dignity Health, which operates Mercy San Juan..." It appears they need a name change after this lawsuit

LiquidSky 2y ago
As usual when entities have these noble names, they don’t mean your or my dignity.
- evantbyrne 2y ago
  Low quality places have the most absurd names in this country. For example, there is a trailer park nearby with a "Manor Lane". At least they put it by "Shady Lane" to balance expectations.
  - Aloha 2y ago
    any apartment complex that advertises 'luxury' is by definition not.
  - The_Blade 2y ago
    Blind date with the chancer We had oysters and dry lancers And the check when it arrived we went dutch, dutch, dutch, dutch A redder shade of neck on a whiter shade of trash And this emory board is giving me a rash I'm flat out You're so beautiful to look at when you cry Freeze, don't move You've been chosen as an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequel to your life
  - ljm 2y ago
    Sanatoriums, asylums, mental institutes, and retirement homes… all called Mount Pleasant.
    - diego_sandoval 2y ago
      M'unpleasant.
2y ago

HorizonXP 2y ago

I read the headline expecting that it was a simple misunderstanding or clerical error, with limited impact to within 24 hours. The article is so much worse and the headline buries the lede. I would be horrified. My condolences to the family.

bluSCALE4 2y ago
Completely agree. I can't imagine being lead on a wild goose chase looking for a loved one only to be told by police that said party lied to me. I guess there's a lesson here: talk with nurses. I'm sure some would toe the line but if something smells fishy, I'm sure someone will crack. Then again, maybe only one nurse would know the truth so it's may not be easy.
- smcin 2y ago
  It's worse than that, it's like burying a double or even triple lede: - it's not just that the hospital told her family totally the wrong thing for a day or a year... - or even negligently cremated or buried her in a pauper's grave... - but they also mishandled the corpse, which IIUC is a misdemeanor (corpse desecration, which is a felony, might not apply), by shipping her decomposing body to an off-site warehouse morgue. - and failing to timely issue a death certificate or do an autopsy prevents determining whether there had been medical malpractice associated with her death.
  - ghostly_s 2y ago
    and they didn't even know she was dead - the death certificate was not completed until her body had been rotting in their facility for a year.

bluSCALE4 2y ago

I wonder if it's possible that she checked herself out but immediately died outside the hospital which would explain why the paper work was in order. I would not explain why after being ID'd, why family wasn't informed or how she was placed into offsite storage facility. Gross incompetence and criminal negligence. I hope the family gets the 5x the jury award as requested. Didn't know you could even do that.

cogman10 2y ago
> I wonder if it's possible that she checked herself out but immediately died outside the hospital I find that really unlikely. I mean, for starters, they had her body and knew it was her body in storage. That doesn't happen if they don't have IDs attached to the corpse. I find it unlikely that the hospital wouldn't be ringing the family like crazy because of a body they want to unload. Especially if they have the paperwork showing that she'd checked out. There'd be no reason not to almost immediately say "Hey, actually, we found her right outside the hospital dead, sorry for your loss". I'm guessing an obvious fuck up killed her like 10xing her insulin dosage by mistake. Or administering something other than insulin. And it wouldn't surprise me if, conveniently, 17 or 24 months just happens to be the retention policy for medical records.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > And it wouldn't surprise me if, conveniently, 17 or 24 months just happens to be the retention policy for medical records. This was in California, where the law [0] is 7 years minimum, potentially more if the patient was a minor. AFAICT every state wants at least ~5 years of retention. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/california/22-CCR-72543 https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/california/22-CCR-72...
- sonotathrowaway 2y ago
  Or they needed to keep the body long enough that any evidence of malpractice could be hidden.
geor9e 2y ago
Like she died and the medical examiner took her directly? It doesn't sound like it from this: "The 31-year-old died in the care of Mercy San Juan medical center in Sacramento in April 2023. The hospital shipped her body to a storage facility"

015a 2y ago

Hospital management: "What new system or form can we add so our liability is limited in this happening again? Just one more e-signature bro, it'll work this time I swear, this is the one, just one more."

djmips 2y ago
They'll get it added to your Disney+ subscription.

khaki54 2y ago

Crazy. I wonder if they made a mistake, somehow killing her, but thought she was indigent or mentally ill, and that's why they did all this. Then again, it sounds like she was treated many times by this hospital. I cannot fathom the circumstances where the actions after her death could have been a simple mistake, but they've had 16 months to come up with a story and destroy all the evidence, so we may never know the truth.

primitivesuave 2y ago
Honestly, this was the first thought I had when I read the article. I worked in this space for several years and interacted with many doctors - just like in any other professional industry, some people have stellar reputations that precede them, while a few are infamous for their malpractice and unethical behavior. The perverse incentive arises when a hospital has a publicized malpractice lawsuit or criminal investigation - everyone who works at that for-profit medical institution has an incentive to protect its reputation (i.e. its profitability). This has allowed "angel of death" doctors/nurses to kill hundreds of people over the years, since there isn't much incentive to dig too deeply into "excess mortality" statistics (a famous example being Harold Shipman who could have easily been detected 2 years and over 100 victims earlier). Covering up a case of medical malpractice by surreptitiously filling out discharge paperwork is certainly possible. A surprisingly large component of healthcare processes is to blindly trust that doctors are manually entering information truthfully and accurately. The fact that they couldn't locate her body for an entire year strongly suggests a criminal conspiracy to hide the body.
- yosito 2y ago
  As a victim of medical malpractice, it's terrifying to me that someone could have killed me to cover it up.

jofer 2y ago

You'd be amazed how bad hospitals can be at keeping track of fairly critical things. I had a cousin who voluntarily checked himself into the hospital related to severe withdrawal symptoms (and had bouts of psychosis related to said with withdrawal - meth addictions are nasty). His mother stayed for awhile but had to leave for work. She was repeatedly guaranteed by multiple doctors and nurses that he could not check himself out and would be there for several days at least. They told her to come back the next morning. Late that night, he was discharged. Not even "he checked himself out". The hospital discharged him (and that's over an hour ride away from home, btw - no hospitals in rural areas these days). He had no phone and no wallet. According to staff, he tried to call his mother to pick him up, but couldn't remember her cell phone number (it had changed recently). He called his sister and left a message, but she was traveling and didn't get it until much later. According to the hospital, he tried to call several different numbers trying to get a ride home and they made him stop and made him leave. In a quite rough downtown area he was not familiar with. While clearly not in his right mind. At 2am. With no wallet, no phone, no nothing. The hospital had his mother's contact info. They did not give it to him even when he requested it. They did not attempt to contact her in any way. We still don't know what happened afterwards. His body was found four days later in the river and it had been there for awhile. Forcibly discharging someone under those circumstances and refusing to even contact their emergency contacts is beyond belief. I'm furious about it. Apparently it's common and not even something there's any recourse for.

mrinfinitiesx 2y ago
Reading that makes me incredibly outraged. I'm sorry that happened and your family had to go through that.
JohnMakin 2y ago
When I was a teenageer a school counselor incorrectly perceived me to be in a crisis and had me sent to 72 hour hold (which stays on certain records for quite a while and can be incredibly disruptive, but that's besides the point) - for some reason I was sent almost 40 miles away in another county in a city I'd never been. The hospital doctors took one look at me and realized I didn't belong there, but to do a discharge apparently is a pretty lengthy process once this process is initiated - almost 20 hours later (again, being held completely against my will for no reason) they released me. I asked them where I was supposed to go and if I could call my dad. They said no, but they gave me two (2) bus tokens, which wasn't enough to get back where my car was parked at the school, plus I had no idea how to use the bus system in that county, and didn't have my glasses, phone, or wallet. I really don't know how long it took or how I made it, but many many hours later I made it back to my car. I had to beg for money and walk the last several miles once I recognized finally where I was. It really sucked, and ever since then I've had a great deal of sympathy for people that are churned through this terrible system and spit right back out with no dignity whatsoever, let alone empathy. This incident disrupted my life irreversibly (ended up missing tests and having to do a medical withdrawal from school, lost scholarships, etc) and derailed a lot of things I had wanted to do for many, many years. The hospital/medical care industrial complex doesn't optimize for empathy. They're just trying to get the bodies through as quickly as possible.

croes 2y ago

>Mercy San Juan hospital failed in its most fundamental duty to notify Jessie’s family of her death Despite the misconduct, I think saving people's lives is the most fundamental duty of a hospital.

dgfitz 2y ago
Yeah: “we failed at our one job” should have been IMMEDIATELY expressed to the family.
layer8 2y ago
There can be multiple most fundamental duties: https://proofwiki.org/wiki/Maximal_Element_need_not_be_Unique https://proofwiki.org/wiki/Maximal_Element_need_not_be_Uniqu...
- vsuperpower2021 2y ago
  This is one of those things where people think that because they learned something in set theory 101 or intro to computers that it maps perfectly to real life situations.
  - ghufran_syed 2y ago
    Ok, let me translate it into non-math for you - there can be a goal that is a "highest priority" for the organisation in the sense that no other goal is a higher priority, and yet there are other goals for the organization that are equal to it in priority. Isn't "a Maximal Element need not be Unique" a more elegant and much more succinct way of saying the same thing?
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  Look, that's a great proof and all but it has nothing to do with the situation at hand. Just because mathematics say there can be two maximal elements doesn't mean morality agrees - and this is the domain of morality, not mathematics.
  - 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

EE84M3i 2y ago

This might sound silly, but technically speaking how does this kind of notification work in relation to HIPAA? Is there some kind of a carve out that allows hospitals to tell your family you've "been discharged against medical advice"? How does next of kin notification work for death? To put it another way, clearly the outcome in this story was unacceptable, but what was the correct outcome?

primitivesuave 2y ago
You're conflating information privacy guidelines (i.e. HIPAA) with next-of-kin reporting which is usually specified by state law. If you check out the probate process which distributes an estate after death, it can vary considerably from state to state and has a lot more judicial involvement. HIPAA is not an enforced statute or law, it's a set of civil rights guidelines which allow hefty fines to be levied by OCR (Office of Civil Rights) when a violation is reported and investigated. HIPAA does specifically allow for the sharing of PHI with family and friends of a with substantial leeway given to medical professionals to document their reasoning for sharing information if it is "in the patient's best interest". In the hypothetical scenario where concerned family/friends are inquiring about a discharge, it would be perfectly acceptable to share certain details of the discharge if the healthcare provider is willing to document and possibly defend their decision. In this case, not reporting to next of kin was certainly not in the patient's best interest and a prima facie case of misconduct. As someone who sat at the intersection of health and law for several years, I can't see any possible legal justification or loophole for the hospital to avoid a hefty settlement. As some of the other comments on this thread suggest, this shocking oversight may not be an isolated case, so a hefty monetary penalty is the only realistic way to force the other for-profit health systems of America to implement better processes for this.
- EE84M3i 2y ago
  I see, that makes sense, thanks! So, after the patient died, what is the mechanism by which the family should have been contacted? Later, if that failed and the family came to ask the hospital, the correct answer was "they're dead", not "we can't tell you" (and especially not "they were discharged against medical advice"!). How does the hospital authenticate and authorize the inquiry party? Edit: also, is being dead PHI?

tppiotrowski 2y ago

Personal story: A couple of years ago I climbed Mt Whitney in California. One of the climbers that day was from the east coast and failed to show up for work a few days later. The family became concerned and called the car rental agency in Las Vegas where he flew to and rented his car. The agency said the car had been returned. After another day of him missing they called the car rental agency again to confirm and once again the agency said the car was in the lot. The next day the rangers found the car was still parked in the Mt Whitney parking lot and search and rescue was finally dispatched. In this case I believe it didn't make a difference because the climber appeared to die from acute injury on the mountain the day of his climb but in another scenario maybe those 2 days would've been the difference between being rescued or dying from exposure.

pyuser583 2y ago
I recently faced a personal catastrophe because a low ranking clerical worker mixed up a form. I’m not mad about it. I’m mad there’s no apology because the company insists they did nothing wrong. Another company, the one reading the form, is responsible for services rendered in regards to the form. Clearly not the form-fillers fault.
- aidenn0 2y ago
  Oh so many systems take "pass the buck" to an insane level. My employer switched insurance providers recently. Twice we were referred to a specialist for one of my kids and each time it took about a week for the referral to be approved (apparently the PCP referring you isn't enough with this HMO). The only thing that has changed is my HMO; the kids still have the same pediatrician with the same office staff for which referrals were never a problem in the past. However, the insurance company made sure to tell me that they are not the ones delaying it, because it's technically the administrative department of my pediatrician that has to do the referral review. The fact that insurance company mandates that the referral review must be performed by a licensed nurse and follow a byzantine process, of course, has nothing to do with the delay.

victor106 2y ago

> according to a civil lawsuit against the hospital. Shouldn't this be a criminal case?

ikiris 2y ago
Only if a prosecutor wants it to be.
onlypassingthru 2y ago
Only if the likelihood of guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt, which the DA may not want to try. In civil suits the bar is lower as it's only a requirement for a preponderance of evidence. Odds are the hospital will settle this out of court for an undisclosed sum because they can't realistically have their records on the matter brought to light. Was it medical malpractice?! We'll never know.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  >Odds are the hospital will settle this out of court for an undisclosed sum because they can't realistically have their records on the matter brought to light IMO it should not be legally possible to settle something this dire out of court. You shouldn't be able to bury anything simply by paying a large sum.
bpodgursky 2y ago
What specific criminal laws are you suggesting were broken? Obviously a lot of crap happened here but there's not a legal obligation to be helpful to next-of-kin. Suing for vague "damages" is going to be far more productive.
- RoyalHenOil 2y ago
  Taking her remains without the knowledge and consent of her next of kin is surely illegal. If I put a corpse in a warehouse for a year while the family was begging me to tell them where their loved one was, I would expect to face criminal negligence charges at the least.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

maronato 2y ago

This is very sad. My condolences to the family. Reading the timeline, I can’t help but speculate that there’s a darker side to this. Two days before “checking out”, the daughter called the mom to say she was better and was about to leave. Soon after that, something bad happens (possibly malpractice) and she dies. An autopsy would reveal the true cause of death, so the hospital quietly ships her to an off-site morgue, doesn’t even fill a death certificate, and fabricates her checking out. Now the body is beyond decomposed and an autopsy is impossible. The hospital claims it was a simple mix-up and gets away with a bit of bad press and a negligence charge.

polartx 2y ago
I was reading something recently about pleading the fifth, (like if someone at the hospital was called to testify), I read that in criminal cases, pleading the fifth could not be used against the defendant. However in civil cases, jurors are instructed to assume their refusal to testify would implicate their guilt. I didn’t verify what I read, so take it with a grain of salt.

consp 2y ago

It says she was taken in due to a diabetic episode. What on earth is that? Hypo/hyperglycaemia? You'd have to have extremely poorly managed type 1 diabetes for that to become fatal without a massive screwup at that age.

GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
this sounds very close to victim blaming in a country where insulin is not considered a human right, let alone the fact that many people in America only effectively have access to human insulin instead of analogs with higher efficacy and shorter absorption time. also people can develop t1d well into adulthood. we don’t have any information about this persons life nor should we need any. this event is just one more reason i’m terrified to be diabetic in this country. honestly the way you posed this question is awful and I invite you to reconsider your intent. hopefully the benefit of my doubt is not misplaced.

theparanoid 2y ago

My classmate from nursing school is an RN at that hospital, I'm not surprised.

If this happened in any of the majour european countries we would have that news in the headlines of newspapers and newscasts for several days. How come that is not the same in the US even more so given that the health sector is mostly privatized and therefore "should be" more efficient ( when in fact is clear that it is a complete failure compared to European standards) ? .

snowpid 2y ago
I think it is worth pointing out that many European health systems do have strong private elements (e.g. most of them pay pharma companies for making medicine) and NHS in the UK as a goverment focused health system is still quiet bad compared to other European countries. But to your original question: As you are hanging around these website, I notice (and you too maybe), that even the most educated Americans have an "only American" world view. They consider it is the best country in the world anyway and don't care about other parts of the world. In German news on German problems (e.g. Digitalisation) journalist sometimes point other countries as a positive example or role model (here Estonia or rarely Ukraine). On American problems it does not happen and we (as a I assume you live on my site of the Atlantic) just nodding our head why it does not change. It would need to change a deeply entrenced attitude. On this discussion page here they dont discuss how other countries do it. Not a single example how to make it better. Because the US is on the top of the hill anyway.
- RoyalHenOil 2y ago
  I am an American and have lived most of my life in the US, but I have lived overseas for the last 12 years. My experience is that Americans are very insular and do not know much about other countries because American-owned new media focuses on US stories, most major social media sites are American-owned and overwhelmingly populated with other Americans, etc. Americans are insulated simply because the information sectors they have access to are dominated by American businesses. Hell, even the Internet itself is American. (This is the same reason that non-American countries are also overwhelmed by American issues/news/culture.) It is not because Americans think they are superior, and it does not cause Americans to think they are superior. Degree of insulation and sense of superiority are independent variables, and Americans (especially middle-aged and younger) are actually quite low on the sense-of-superiority scale — certainly way, way lower than most Europeans in my experience. (This is not intended as a slight against Europeans; you have very good reasons to prefer Europe to the US.) Every American I know has serious complaints about the US and is acutely aware that other countries leave the US in the dust in several of areas, including (though certainly not limited to) healthcare. There are of course some nationalist extremists out there who will argue otherwise, and they can be especially noisy on the internet because that is the nature of extremists, but these are not the average people you meet walking down an American street. Most Americans may not know the ins and outs of other countries' healthcare systems, and therefore may not speak in any detail about those systems on American media sites like this one, but that isn't because they think theirs is the best. They may not ponder the ways that Estonia or Germany has the better healthcare system, but that's because they would be over the moon for anything half as good as either of them. The USA's political flaws unfortunately run very deep and are in no way the fault of the modern American people. The US Constitution is a very old, very hard-to-change document that was designed primarily to make the US government as stable as possible — at the cost of responsiveness to democratic will. Basically all of the genuine democracies (I am not talking about dictatorships that larp as democracies) created after American democracy were designed to correct the flaws of the US Constitution: the first-past-the-post voting system, the extreme difficulty of adding amendments, etc. That's why they have nice things.

BodyCulture 2y ago

I recently had an opportunity to learn something about software used in hospitals and it was a shock. Are you laughing about the JS or web developer meme as a symbol for clueless people? Well, I need to tell you that every JS or web dev is a code guru compared to the guys I have seen in medical / hospital software. While your web dev has a very good idea about infrastructure and code maintenance these guys are usually clueless about CI, git, secrets management etc. but still they now all want to migrate their stuff to azure, because it’s cool… to say the truth I didn’t understand the reason why they want to. People that are basically relying on Microsoft wizard based development. Shocking was that this was not only some bureaucracy software, but systems that are used for actual operations and patient management. I guess that many people died already because windows developers but nobody did a systematic investigation so we don’t know.

stbenjam 2y ago

I hope they get awarded 100x what they’re asking for.

black_13 2y ago

[dead]

louthy 2y ago

I can’t be the only person that thought about the Arrested Development ‘literal doctor’ [1] when reading the headline? [1] https://youtu.be/0BUBd9dQvtY https://youtu.be/0BUBd9dQvtY

fallinghawks 2y ago

My neighbor, who has bipolar mania, was in the hospital for a 72-hour hold. She wanted to leave, naturally, and a "patient advocate" made it happen "against the doctor's orders." So I'm trying to figure out how the choices of someone who cannot soundly judge their own condition take priority over that of the doctor in charge of them.