Woman Dies on Hospital Floor-Nobody helped.

I really dont understand how the love of people grows so cold.
why can they ignore human life as though it were nothing?
I just dont understad. This is an awful thing to have happened, I think someone needs to get fired and people need to rethink how they are handeling these situations.

Originally posted by PsykoOps

Oh sorry, I was under impression that this was a private hospital. My bad

[edit on 15-6-2007 by sanctum]

No need to apologize. I only used your quote because it was the last one I read.

I got that information from the OP's link. Here is the relevent text:

After the inspection last week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave the hospital 23 days to correct problems or face a loss of federal funding that provides much of its budget. That could force it to close.

Take care!

Originally posted by earth2

Originally posted by AndrewTB
Was she illegal or not?

IMO if legal the doctors and nurses should be prosecuted.

But I don't think anyone should pay legally or financially for someone that came into this country illegally. Sounds hard but they shouldn't be here in the first place.

Well IMO if the person is human you should help.

As far as your logic goes us Americans are illegal and shouldn't be here.

That logic is flawed in itself. Especially since times were different back then and the issues that exist today weren't even thought of being possible.

If we saved everyone we would have one hell of a population problem. I have no health insurance myself. If I drop dead because I failed to do my part in society then so be it. What happens is meant to be.

Now I do feel grief over the loss. Personally I would not care if someones legal or not and id try to help. But thats not to say one should be punished for turning down health care to someone in this country illegal and breaking the law.

[edit on 6/15/2007 by AndrewTB]

I smell big lawsuit, prosecute all the people who didn't help her, the cop should be fired and never let on the force ever again, janitor if he is a foreigner, deport him and never let him ever again to US and the doctors should be fined big time!

Are you all unaware that law suits can put the hospital and doctors out of buisiness? What exactly will that solve?

We have too many law suits already. The "sue someone" lawyers are hate mongers. The sue someone attitude is a cop-out for self-responsibility.

This particular case is being blown all out of proportion to the facts. It is so easy for media to "cut & paste" to make any incident look really bad. It gets lots of attention, an that is what they want - your attention.

Someone here who was thinking mentioned the possibility that the woman was responsible in some way for her condition. Soo y'all cool it until you get more info. Being a "hot head" is self defeating.

I have a question in the matter - Since this is called "Martin Luther King JR"---hospital. Is it primarily staffed and operated for the black population? Since the casualty here was hispanic; is there a possibility that there was a racial issue here?

I guess it once again prompts the question: "which countries are third world?" I can't believe what i have read and heard and this in a country "the land of the free." Well i guess that woman is now "free" in a sense. She may as well have been in Rwanda or some other 3rd world country and aid workers would have probably treated her better! Someone remarked about her been "legal." Again, what does that matter when it comes to saving a human life. If someone were being attacked by a shark or was seen drowning in a swimming pool, do we all run to see if we can find some identification in one of their pockets before we decide to save their life? That is a sad way of thinking and only echoes a sad case of being "brain dead." We have enough to contend with than to have to wonder why Cops, Doctors and nurses acted this way. We should have a feeling of comfort that the relative authorities do what they are supposed to - I guess, for the most part, doctors should no longer take the vow to save human lives because it really has come down to making money and NOT saving a life. If they DO manage to save a life I think it is merely coincidental these days! Their main priority is to spend their day pondering whether they have made enough to afford that new Ferrari or Porsche. We have PRIVATE doctors that are so fully booked they can ONLY spend about 10 minutes with a patient but book them for 30 minute sessions - so when you get to their rooms you invariably wait for 45 minutes plus to get in to see them PAST your booking time. HOW, in Gods good name, can they REALLY expect to diagnose an unknown ailment in that time. Well what they do is assume they have the answer and prescribe some drug and when that doesn't work they give you something else till you land up in hospital fighting for your life!!

[edit on 18/6/2007 by shearder]

It was her time.

When mine comes there won't be anything I or anyone else can do about it. That is the difference between destiny and fate.

Originally posted by ag2000

I agree with your sentiment here. However, This is a FEDERALLY funded hospital! It is not a privately held business to make money. They are there to take care of people who do not have money or insurance.

Also she was not a "leach" as someone put it ( I can't remember now). The hospital is there for people like her.

Just wanted to clear that up.

Ah, I missed that part.

We have one of those around here. There is typically only one Dr. in the ER at any given time. A while back when my oldest was only 2, we had to take him to there. We were flat broke and had piss poor insurance. We took him in because he couldnt stop throwing up. Poor little guy. People say that some people get rooms quicker than others, that doesnt mean that they see the Dr. sooner. Typically it is so that they dont gross out the other patients waiting in the waiting room. We waited in that room for 4 hours, barf buckets everywhere with no where to dump them and no one would take the used ones. We never did get to see the Dr. we ended up going home and making a DR. appointment the next morning. After that, my husband and I worked extra hard to make sure that never happens again. Now, we have enough to pay bills and good insurance, therefore, we never have to wait more than 30 min. to be seen and that is only if there is a long wait. I have a friend who was a nurse at the county hospital around here, she said it usually takes AT LEAST 4 hours to be seen at any given time because the er is always so full. Even the ones who are gushing blood are temporaraly patched up untill they can get them in for stitches. Its crazy.

Though my previous posts might come off as snooty, cold, or whatever, all Im trying to say is I have a hard time comming down on the nurses there. The nurses I know do their best, even knowing ahead of time that their best is not going to be good enough. However, I just read an article about that hospital and how 47% of the nurses there needed to be let go because they were not up to par. Even then though, what do you do when you dont have anyone wanting to fill their shoes.

SO, in cases like this, who do you blame? Is there anyone to blame? It is an awefull story, and I truely feel for the family, and the poor woman who's life ended this way. BUT if they close the hospital, then there are just going to be more cases like this due to already overcrowded hospitals having to take on an extra load. Demand is high, and supply of good nurses is very low. Not a good combination.

[edit on 18-6-2007 by mrsdudara]

test 1, 2...test, test 1, 2, 3.

Disregard, problem fixed. Thanks.

When an Emergency Room has a patient, who is incoherent due to drugs or alcohol, AND is IN CUSTODY of the POLICE, it is the POLICE who tell (consent) the Emergency Room to to treat the patient, or that they are taking them back to prison, initially.

When the patient has to be admitted, the law officials are supposed to provide their own security in the patient's room, but often do not, and leave the patient unattended, and tell the staff "Don't let him get away."

I know, I've been through this as a RN.

IF a nurse an/dor doctor SEES the patient is in DISTRESS and CONTRONTS the law official based on the ethics of it to get the priosion/patient treatment against the intentions of the law official, they would win, in all senses, legally for having done so.

That is NOT so say that the doctor or nurse who started the confrontation for the patient's sake would NOT suffer backlash retribution later on underhandedly by the law.

I'm merely pointing out that there may or may not have been a LOT of unknown contributing factors to this tragedy.

However, it REMAINS UTTTERLY UNJUSTIFIED and should NEVER have happened.

I, too, am an RN and have worked many an ER. Someone throwing up blood and falling out of their chair takes precedence over quite a few cases that show up on a typical night in the ER. We've had gunshot wound victims that we gave a box of 4x4's to and told them to "hold pressure" on their own wound (not life-threatening) until we could stabilize people like this woman who died on the hospital floor. At the very least, you can call the O.R. and transport her to surgery.
It is absolutely inconceivable to me that doctors and nurses walked past this woman and did nothing.
I worked ER and ICU at a state run hospital and we got a lot of "clinic" patients that have no insurance and think that state hospitals are "free". You get a lot of drug seekers, drunks, drunk drivers, kids with earaches or colic, a few gunshot wounds and serious car wrecks but, I swear, vomiting blood and falling out of your chair moves you to the top of the must see list. When people come in in that serious a condition, they don't even get asked for insurance or their name. We may have the admissions person look for ID while we take them immediately back but they skip triage, admissions process; pass go and get immediate treatment. This is inexcusable! We're not the "morality detectors" or the border patrol. If she ate razor blades in a suicide attempt, we still treat her. If she swam the Rio Grande swallowing amoebic dysenterry and showed up in the ER vomiting blood she would get treated before ANY questions were asked. Unbelievable!

Originally posted by Matyas
It was her time.

When mine comes there won't be anything I or anyone else can do about it. That is the difference between destiny and fate.

So decides the hospital staff? I mean it was in their hands to try to help her, and they chose not to do so in effect sealing her destiny. I for one dont want hospital staff to have such a power. We're only humans and wheter destiny or faith wants us dead it is our responsibility to help those who face such hardship, even more so if you work at an ER. If it truly it was her time then she would've died regardless of help, but now we never now.

Originally posted by PsykoOps

Originally posted by Matyas
It was her time.

When mine comes there won't be anything I or anyone else can do about it. That is the difference between destiny and fate.

So decides the hospital staff? I mean it was in their hands to try to help her, and they chose not to do so in effect sealing her destiny.

GOOD question PsykoOps!! Who decides who lives and dies. So if it's your time it's your time - I accept that BUT I would trust that to be based on natural causes ONLY. You can't tell me a dude running down the road fires a few shots and a baby gets hit in the head then it's the babies time - I SAY BS!!

If someone has been shot in the head it SHOULD, based on usual outcome, be their time but it has happened and a couple of people have survived and they sit there and say "It wasn't my time" - in a way, BUT the doctors were prepared to SAVE you and didn't leave you laying on the floor to die or it WOULD be your time.

So, as was asked above, WHO decides when it is your time? Who do you allow to decide whether it is your child's time, your mother's time, your brother or sister's time?? Who decides for YOU! Who makes up YOUR mind??

[edit on 28/6/2007 by shearder]

It's beyond me that let alone a hospital would ignore a very sick person. is that would the world is coming too? Were they too busy to get Drs. to help or oblivious?

Well the woman's family just cashed in on two million bucks. I wonder where were THEY while the woman spent 24 hours in an emergency room alone? I cannot imagine any member of my family needing to be in an emergency room and the rest of us or at least most of us not being there too. After she died, the family suddenly cared. PIGS!

abcnews.go.com...

What a sad story. Hospitals are nothing like they were when I was a kid, my sister just had a baby and the hospital was not a place I would want to stay very long. The nurses were incompetent to busy surfing the net on their computers or gossiping to help when something ran out. The place was built like a prison too all the doors were locked and you had to ring some buzzer and ask permission for them to open the doors. Like everything else in this country it's only about money anymore, your not a human being your a "consumer".