Woman dies in ER lobby as 911 refuses to help

[LoZoccolo]

LOS ANGELES - A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.

.....

As if the situation with the waiting room and the calls wasn't bad enough:

County and state authorities are now investigating Rodriguez’s death. Relatives reported she died as police were wheeling her out of the hospital after the officers they had asked to help Rodriguez arrested her instead on a parole violation. Sheriff’s Department spokesman Duane Allen said Wednesday that the investigation is ongoing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19207050/?GT1=10056

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. LA. of course.

how fucked up is this?

[EVDebs]

5. Gov Ahnold vetoed SB840....never put this kind of power in his hands again nt

[nini]

2. They have conflicting info on the hospital

King Drew is not the same as Harbor.. regardless someone's head needs to roll.

It's a law that no one is to be turned away at any ER. I wonder if the police/sheriffs interfered to the point the staff was afraid? hmmmmm

poor woman and her family. :cry:

[WI_DEM]

3. Unforgivable! Some heads better roll for this. But it's too late for that lady.

[PeaceNikki]

4. I saw this on the news this AM.

Two people - the woman's husband (SO?) and a woman in the waiting room called 911. After the dispatcher chastized the woman for calling she said to him “May God strike you too for acting the way you just acted.” Indeed.

[baldguy]

6. Check her for priors, THEN check her pulse?

[Benhurst]

7. Life is cheap in BushAmerica.

:argh:

[BeeBee]

8. I have a problem with the headline.

911 was not to blame for this, the hospital was.

[nini]

10. I agree

The hospital she was in should have treated her in the first place.

[PeaceNikki]

11. Dispatch could have and should have sent help for transport.

Instead they chastized the callers - telling them that 911 was for "real" emergencies.

The ER is primarily to blame, but 911 could have done better. Listen to the calls and I think you'll agree.

[nini]

12. I agree with that too

.

[datasuspect]

9. were they illegals?

just like illegals, they come here and die in our hospitals.

sarcasm.

i'm surprised i haven't heard this argument yet.

[Xenotime]

13. Un-fucking-believeable..

Somebody is suffering and nobody helps.

[Edweird]

14. I would have gone absolutely apeshit. If my wife died like that, I would make people pay.

That is wrong.

[RedCappedBandit]

15. Pathetic..

something needs to be done, but in reality its too late.

i have a problem with the article too

"“I’m in the emergency room. My wife is dying and the nurses don’t want to help her out,” Rodriguez’s boyfriend, Jose Prado, is heard saying in Spanish through an interpreter on the tapes.

"


..was he not speaking in english? what am i missing..?

[BlackVelvet04]

16. Also from the article:

"Dr. Roger Peeks, the chief medical officer at the hospital, was placed on “ordered absence” Monday, the Times reported. Health officials declined to elaborate, saying it was a personnel matter. Dr. Robert Splawn, chief medical officer for the health department, was named interim chief medical officer, the newspaper said."




Well, well, well. It appears this isn't the first time Dr. Roger Peeks has had problems:

And now another Drew/King misadventure. The chief auditor for the Department of Health has claimed that the medical director, Roger Peeks, has possibly received kickbacks and falsely allowed illegal payment for a radiologist who slept at the hospital and was being paid $225 an hour for this time. The radiologist worked 20 hours a day, seven days a week for six months. Peeks has been accused to giving away public funds by allowing the payments to be made and by giving the radiologist a free room in the medical residents dorm. Peeks was supposed to disciplined for the use of payments according to the Board of Supes but Peeks states he never was. The outside consultants told the health department director not to discipline him since the investigation was ongoing.
http://www.medicalaw.net/july_1,_2005_>


Problems with medication administration have been even more pervasive for more than a year. In March 2004, government health inspectors found that staff repeatedly withheld medications from patients and administered the wrong drugs or dosages, in some cases even as the inspectors looked on. As a result, the medical center almost lost its federal money.

Similarly, regulators and even hospital administrators have accused King/Drew and its affiliated medical school of a lack of physician-trainee oversight. In January, for instance, Dr. Roger Peeks, the hospital's medical director, sent out a memo saying "inadequately trained and not properly supervised" first-year residents inadvertently left guide wires in three patients.
http://ktla.trb.com/news/local/la-me-kingdrew6apr06,0,5217639.story?coll=ktla-news-1>

Invoices and time sheets show that four King/Drew employees, including the radiology department’s interim chairman, signed off on all of Tate’s hours, even when they reached 22 to 24 a day for weeks on end.
Hospital medical director Dr. Roger Peeks said he, too, knew Tate was working a lot but believed the bulk was restricted to weekends. In hindsight, he said, someone should have been paying attention.
http://www.cantonrep.com/printable.php?ID=219884>