Nurse tosses kidney and other examples of heinous health care

[Jane2]

Posted: 8/30/13 at 5:47pm

Anyone else just hear that on the news?

Oh please come on. I'm so sick of "human error" or "I made a mistake"

There's no excuse for throwing a boy's kidney out. He was donating it to his sister who needed it to live. I'm happy that she received another one, but please.

Updated On: 9/1/13 at 05:47 PM

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 8/30/13 at 5:56pm

That story horrified me when I heard it on the news. That's NOT. A little error.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/30/13 at 6:28pm

Iflit will haunt that person from here to eternity.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 4:32am

So, basically, they put the boy through totally unnecessary surgery/recovery? AND wasted a healthy kidney? Where did this happen, btw?

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 7:57am

It happened in Ohio. He was 21.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 8:08am

As I pulled up this thread, Jane, to read your response, the intro for story came up on my news.


The sister rec'd a kidney that was only a PARTIAL match and therefore is still in pretty poor condition, lots of meds.


The hospital is trying to have charges reduced because they said, according to the news, that they were sorry and did everything they could to rectify the situation. The max the victims can be rewarded under OHIO law, is 250K.


You know, but the hospital was "sorry".

Updated On: 8/31/13 at 08:08 AM

[Jane2]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 9:04am

Yes and they quoted a figure over 5,000 times that such medical "mistakes are made annually. I may have heard them say that the nurse was fired (hopefully).

She was probably too busy texting to notice what she was doing.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 1:23pm

I really don't understand how this could happen. Once the organ is removed, isn't it quickly placed in a cooler to preserve? Aren't those things clearly marked? Isn't it usually rushed to the other OR where the recipiant awaits? It is not like they leave it on a plate on the counter in the lunch room,

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 1:27pm

Maybe they did leave it in the lunch room?!

And then someone thought it was a sandwich so they took it.





The whole thing is just so crazy, and to try and use the excuse that mistakes happen is just unacceptable.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 1:50pm

The nurse dined on Kidney Pie that evening.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 2:53pm

For whatever reason I'm reminded of a Golden Girls episode where Blanche has to decide whether to give her sick sister one of her kidneys.

Rose: Why would she need a kidney?
Dorothy: TO FEED THE CAT, ROSE!!!

XD

[NoName3]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 5:18pm

The kidney was being kept in a "slush machine", whatever that is, in the OR to keep it cool while the initial surgery was being done. Nurse One goes on either an extended break, or to lunch, according to whichever account you read, and is replaced by Nurse Two. Nurse One returns and Nurse Two fails to update her on the status of the operation. Nurse One then places the contents of the slush machine into a bag, takes it down the hall, and dumps it into a bin or hopper for medical waste, one of her regular duties. She had to have bagged the contents of the machine and walked it out in front of the entire OR staff and no one noticed.

Nurse One resigned. Nurse Two was fired. The director of surgical services is on extended leave. The surgeons are still working. The transplant program at the hospital was suspended for several months. The family is now suing.

The brother's discarded kidney was a perfect match. The replacement kidney the hospital found for the woman was not a perfect match and the woman is having problems. She may have to have yet another transplant.

Google page of links to news accounts Updated On: 8/31/13 at 05:18 PM

[SNAFU]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 5:24pm

Wow, that is incompetence on many levels!

[Jane2]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 5:46pm

yes, and the family should sue their guts out. And win.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 6:46pm

Jane, I believe the Family will end up owning part of the hospital no doubt about it!

[Jane2]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 7:03pm

I hope so. My family once tried to sue a hospital with cut and dry evidence against them. We even hired a shyster lawyer, but couldn't win.

[NoName3]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 7:59pm

Very unlikely, SNAFU, for two reasons:

1. As someone else mentioned above, Ohio has state laws that limit recovery in medical malpractice suits to $250,000. This happened in Toledo.

2. Insurance companies (whose lawyers would represent defendants) keep dozens of expensive lawyers on the payroll whose main strategy is usually to just keep malpractice suits tied up in the legal system for years and years until you give up and take what they offer. (My late partner's father died in a hospital from outright neglect over twenty years ago. He developed bedsores from not being regularly turned by the nurses while recuperating from minor surgery. The sores became infected and the poor man died from sepsis. The family's case is still in the system.) Unless the story becomes very high profile, which this case has, AND you have tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars yourself to pursue the case, your options are limited. The only realistic option is to take whatever settlement the insurance companies offer, no matter how unfair. No top notch lawyer or law firm is going to take on a case where recovery is limited to less than the possible expense of pursuing the case. You don't need to tell me how unfair and grotesque this is. I think I should start adding the most vicious lawyer jokes I know to the joke thread.

The value of the case becoming high profile is that the insurance companies will usually be more inclined to offer a decent settlement to make the bad publicity go away.

Updated On: 8/31/13 at 07:59 PM

[Jane2]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 9:57pm

. He developed bedsores from not being regularly turned by the nurses while recuperating from minor surgery. The sores became infected and the poor man died from sepsis."

My mother had the same thing happen to her, except her case was much worse, since a team of surgeons performed defibrillator surgery on her FOUR times in a row. this is unheard of in the medical profession. FOUR times performing invasive surgery on an 89 yr. old woman. Plus the bedsores, sepsis, kidney failure, diabetes, etc.

We definitely had a case but no lawyer would take it because the outcome is based on how many years the patient has left, and it wouldn't be worth it for a lawyer to get involved. this was in Florida, and many elderly patients are treated with shall I say, less than caring care.

[NoName3]

Posted: 8/31/13 at 11:05pm

My condolences, Jane, it's unbearable to watch someone you love go through such unnecessary suffering. And it's so sad, as we both know, that your story is not unusual.

[Jane2]

Posted: 9/1/13 at 10:14am

thanks, NoName, you're right.

ON another note - not just a kidney, but a woman from Kensington Ave Jersey City threw her entire baby in the garbage.

Easy come, easy go, eh?

[mikem]

Posted: 9/1/13 at 1:14pm

I think the limit is only $25,000, which seems really low.

I know the hospital is trying to defend against a lawsuit, but for them to say that they didn't have substandard care in this particular instance is absurd. I don't know how they think anyone could believe that throwing away a kidney is standard of care.

Unless there's more to it, the hospital has pretty bad lawyers. The family is asking for $200,000 ($25,000 x 8 immediate family members). They should just settle for $200,000 and be done with it. By insisting they didn't apply substandard care, they're ruining their own reputation.

[Jane2]

Posted: 9/1/13 at 2:13pm

I think the family is shortchanging itself. the girl needed the kidney to live, her brother's was a perfect match. this one isn't. who knows what kind of complications she could face for the rest of her life?

[Kad]

Posted: 9/1/13 at 4:25pm

"this was in Florida, and many elderly patients are treated with shall I say, less than caring care."

My grandmother lives in Florida, and has been treated terribly in both physical rehabs and hospitals on a couple of occasions. The rehab center she attended after undergoing knee surgery was actually shut down after a series of lawsuits. The nurses/orderlies on several occasions tried to give her medication that she wasn't prescribed.

[Jane2]

Posted: 9/1/13 at 5:04pm

Don't get me started. When my mother was in a rehab place, her "nurse" couldn't be bothered helping her to and from the bathroom, so she put my mother in a diaper.

that's just one minor factoid.

[siny]

Posted: 9/1/13 at 10:25pm

I knew some nurses who worked in rehabs/nursing homes and, in their defense, they are frequently short on staff. They don't hire enough nurses and then pay them very little, with no benefits. The workload is high and so is the turnover. But you can be sure that the owners make plenty of money from Medicare/Medicaid. The whole system is broken.