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January 22, 2006

This Would Not Happen at a Home Birth

Via Q and O, we have the story of a woman who went to the hospital to have a baby, and ended up with both arms and legs amputated. Now, that's bad enough, but understandable: she had complications after delivery, and apparently developed a strep infection (which can in some cases lead to a disease that literally rots flesh away).

No, the tragedy, the absolute I-cannot-understand-this-balls-on-effrontery of the situation is that the hospital will not tell the woman what happened because it might violate other patients' privacy! Think about that for a second. They refuse even to say something like, "another patient in the same area had strep and it spread to you via (method) and that caused..." No, not even that. Just: oh, well, we aren't going to tell you how you ended up a multiple amputee.

I don't much believe in punitive lawsuits, because their abuse is a drag on our social fabric as well as our economy. But this is the kind of case that makes me reluctant to outlaw punitive lawsuits and stratospheric damage awards, because this behavior is so arrogant that you know that the hospital will do this again. Are they covering up bad sanitation practices? Employee misconduct? A careless mistake? Or do they just think that they are gods, and unanswerable to the little peons who they deign to allow to enter their doors?

If you can't tell, I'm really annoyed whenever I see people act this way. It is unforgivable, inexcusable and disgusting.

Posted by jeff at January 22, 2006 9:37 AM

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Comments

This patient has every legal right to have the hospital pull her medical record. Information in the record belongs to the patient. I suspect a review of the record by a physician allied with the patient would lead to a fair understanding of what happened to her.

Information discovered during the hospital's own internal investigation is called peer review. This information is not legally discoverable as the peer review records are protected by law.

This may seem unjust, but there is some reasoning behind it. The removal of the legal threat of malpractice allows physicians to honestly and openly discuss their errors in a peer review protected forum, without worrying that the information they reveal will be used by a plaintiff's lawyer to pursue a judgement. The hope is that all patients benefit from physicians' ability to point out one another's errors, and reveal mistakes from which others can learn.
Having said this, the hospital's failure to honestly discuss this tragedy with the patient will only lead to justifiable anger and a lawsuit.

Posted by: surgdoc at January 24, 2006 1:28 PM

I don't know what the legal situation is in Florida, and it is a Florida law to which the hospital is appealing. I also have not seen the hospital's side of the issue, because I wasn't able to find any press releases or statements from them, just the one I linked.

All of that said, unless the article I linked is blatantly lying, the hospital has a lot of 'splainin' to do about why they're not being forthcoming about what happened. I understand the need for confidential reviews, but how would such a thing violate the privacy rights of another patient, which is the hospital's fig leaf for not telling the patient what happened?

Posted by: Jeff Medcalf [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 24, 2006 8:22 PM