Womans death ruled homicide after sitting 2 hours in waiting room

teforde23 · September 15th, 2006, 04:59 PM

Quote:

WAUKEGAN, Ill. — A coroner's jury has declared the death of a heart attack victim who spent almost two hours in a hospital waiting room to be a homicide.

Beatrice Vance, 49, died of a heart attack, but the jury at a coroner's inquest ruled Thursday that her death also was "a result of gross deviations from the standard of care that a reasonable person would have exercised in this situation."

A spokeswoman for Vista Medical Center in Waukegan, where Vance died July 29, declined to comment on the ruling.

Vance had waited almost two hours for a doctor to see her after complaining of classic heart attack symptoms — nausea, shortness of breath and chest pains, Deputy Coroner Robert Barrett testified.

She was seen by a triage nurse about 15 minutes after she arrived, and the nurse classified her condition as "semi-emergent," Barrett said. He said Vance's daughter twice asked nurses after that when her mother would see a doctor.

When her name was finally called, a nurse found Vance slumped unconscious in a waiting room chair without a pulse. Barrett said. She was pronounced dead shortly afterward.
Barrett said he subpoenaed records after finding discrepancies in the hospital's version of events.

It wasn't immediately clear if the ruling would lead to criminal charges. Dan Shanes, a chief of felony review for the state attorney's office, said his division needed to review the case.

Vista Medical Center spokeswoman Cheryl Maynen said the hospital, just north of Chicago, cooperated with the coroner's investigation and had also investigated the incident. She declined to comment on the homicide ruling.http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,214004,00.html

THis is my worst nightmare. One day in NYC I saw an elderly woman trip on the sidewalk and hurt herself. Me and my friend decide to go with her in the ambulance because she was all alone and seemed scared. When we got to the hospital they just put her bed in the middle of the emergency room floor. THen they asked for insurance info. I was shocked because I thought once you arrived in a hospital emergency room by ambulance they see you right away. She had to wait for a couple of hours and this was at one of the best hospitals in NYC. A major problem with these hospitals is that there's not enough staff a lot of these doctors go into private practice because there's more money. I remembered when Bill Clinton had to have his emergency heart surgery they paged one of the heart surgeons (who according to everyone was the one of the best in the country) and he refused to come in because he was on vacation and playing golf. Later after the surgery when he found out it was Clinton he changed his tune

LynnieD · September 15th, 2006, 05:03 PM

Wow.....sad. I am betting this happens more than we think. And I think it happens a lot.

ANC · September 15th, 2006, 05:24 PM

Kind of weird that her daughter was there with her since the daughter had asked a nurse to see her mom, but when the nurse found her she was in the middle of the room already dead? Where was the daughter? Just wondering. Poor lady.

Butterfly · September 15th, 2006, 05:57 PM

My mom was rushed to the hospital with stomach pains; they made her wait for 6 hours until her appendix burst. It what would have been an in and out situation if they would of caught it when she first came in, but instead it turned into a huge ordeal that almost cost her life.

LastLook · September 16th, 2006, 01:09 AM

From the thread title I expected to have a problem with this but I don't. I've been in emergency rooms where the employees apparently have such important things going on that they can't immediately see a person dying of diabetic ketoacidosis. It's a sad fact of life that if you don't bitch and create a scene, you could truly just sit there and die. Even if you do raise a ruckus, it sometimes doesn't matter. If it was my mom and she was neglected and died when she could have been saved (which is apparently what happened here) you can bet your ass I'd be all over them.

Delphinium · September 16th, 2006, 01:27 AM

How sad. This has also happened at Kaiser in California but without the homicide ruling. I think homicide won't stick though as there was no intent to kill. negligence definitely. I would love to know however, what the staffing was like, how many idiots were taking up beds seeking pain meds and being seen for cold, flu, and other non-emergencies. Not that is justifies what happened, but it would be interesting to know all the facts so the bigger picture can come into focus on this one.

Pretty soon we won't have any emergency rooms due to lack of money and being overloaded with the illegal immigrants and the un-insured, under-insured and drug seeking people.

To bad for that lady, really horrible. But I do feel bad for the nurse also, I wonder if she realized? Was she a new nurse? Did she have the proper training to be out there doing entry interviews?

Rogue · September 16th, 2006, 09:03 AM

See here it would be a civil suit for wrongful death and negigence, and criminal charges, most likely for gross negligence manslaughter.

Makes the NHS look positively respectable!

Sojiita · September 17th, 2006, 08:34 AM

This story reminds me of when I worked in rehab in nursing homes(shudder). One time I was walking by the nurses desk with the speech therapist and she said to me "Louise doesn't look so good does she?" and I agreed. Of couse we found out a short time later that the poor woman we thought did not look so good sitting in her wheelchair by the nurses station had been dead for about half and hour or so when we saw her.!!!

MrsMarsters · September 18th, 2006, 12:45 PM

^^ shit this is pretty damn sad..poor woman.

missbazilb · September 18th, 2006, 06:20 PM

I remember when my mom was in the hospital in a palliative care ward, her roommate was a lady named Phyllis. I'd help her find her glasses, etc. when I was visiting, chat with her, that kind of thing. One evening I was visiting my mom, and Phyllis didn't sound so good - really raspy, laboured breathing, almost coma-like. Granted, these people were only here for one reason, but the nurse came in and said, "Don't worry about Phyllis, it's perfectly normal for her to be breathing like that".

A little while later, I realized that things were awfully quiet over on Phyllis' side of the room, so I went to check on her. She had passed away, so I went and told the nurse. I felt really bad, because she did have a son who visited, and if it was really that close to the end, they could have called him, or someone to at least hold her hand at the end.

We have public health in Canada, and there's a big scandal right now with people jumping the queue by paying for MRI's and CAT scans, which may be making the public wait times longer. It's a terrible mess for waiting to see a specialist or get surgery - months and months and months.

sweetrebel · September 20th, 2006, 10:39 AM

That is sad. Alot of emergency rooms will take you straight back if you have complaints of chest pain of any sort. I had a problem first of the year and was convinced I was having a heart attack-chest pain, numbness, the whole nine yards. Got to the ER and they did take me straight back. Once they did an EKG and saw that I wasn't in the throes of a heart attack I was put in a room where I waited for a loonngg time to see a doctor. I guess they found out I wasn't going to croak right then and there so they knew I could wait.
IMO this is negligence and they should be responsible. Who knows if the woman would have lived even if they got her back as soon as she got there but at least she would have had a fighting chance.