Best health care in the world, the US has!
Tale of last 90 minutes of woman’s life
In the emergency room at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, Edith Isabel Rodriguez was seen as a complainer.
“Thanks a lot, officers,” an emergency room nurse told Los Angeles County police who brought in Rodriguez early May 9 after finding her in front of the Willowbrook hospital yelling for help. “This is her third time here.”
The 43-year-old mother of three had been released from the emergency room hours earlier, her third visit in three days for abdominal pain. She’d been given prescription medication and a doctor’s appointment.
Turning to Rodriguez, the nurse said, “You have already been seen, and there is nothing we can do,” according to a report by the county office of public safety, which provides security at the hospital.
Parked in the emergency room lobby in a wheelchair after police left, she fell to the floor. She lay on the linoleum, writhing in pain, for 45 minutes, as staffers worked at their desks and numerous patients looked on.
Aside from one patient who briefly checked on her condition, no one helped her. A janitor cleaned the floor around her as if she were a piece of furniture. A closed-circuit camera captured everyone’s apparent indifference.
Arriving to find Rodriguez on the floor, her boyfriend unsuccessfully tried to enlist help from the medical staff and county police — even a 911 dispatcher, who balked at sending rescuers to a hospital.
Alerted to the “disturbance” in the lobby, police stepped in — by running Rodriguez’s record. They found an outstanding warrant and prepared to take her to jail. She died before she could be put into a squad car.
Someone’s getting fired.
#1, Nah… probably someone will get promoted 🙁
Is this story about the big issue of health care or the indifference of overworked hospital emergency staff.
Ooopps, None of the above. This is all being blamed upon ONE nurse who had told her to wait. May they all face similar circumstances some day.
This does not surprise me. My mother had a stroke about ten years ago, and had to wait fourteen hours in the ER. She eventually passed on.
Bush will probably pin a medal on the person responsible.
wow. i’ve heard of stuff like this in 3rd world countries but not in US! damn!
Welcome to the 3rd world… what doesn’t kill you, get’s a second chance at the ER….
When the government totally controls health care this won’t happen anymore.
I believe that, I do.
MLK is known as the worst hospital in LA. Just look it up in Wikipedia.
Yet there will still be people who say that her estate has no right to sue and that lawsuits are what cause medical prices to climb.
We have got to change the law where ERs aren’t the primary care centers for every one with a cold or the flu. They are so overwhelmed with none emergency cases that it is a wondor that this doesn’t happen every day.
Even this woman had been having problems for three days. Had she gone to a primary care doctor to start with she would still be alive.
Do you think it has something to do with her not being white?
#11 You can’t make the statement “Had she gone to a primary care doctor to start with she would still be alive.”
There is no evidence that should would not have died no matter who she visited for medical care prior to going to the ER.
You can die with all kinds of doctors around you no matter how hard they try to save your life.
This could open a new avenue for ambulance chasing lawyers. Just let them sit in the waiting room and talk to next of kin.
Don’t worry, it’s not only in the US. The other day a colleague of mine who was working at my country’s (Portugal) main hospital, watched as an elderly lady went into emergency complaining of chest pains and difficulty breathing. The staff in the hospital just had her wait, see if it goes away, try breathing slowly… until she just fell to the side.
Dead, of course…
Oh, man…
“Over the last 3 1/2 years, King-Harbor has reeled from crisis to crisis.
Based on serious patient-care lapses, it has lost its national accreditation and federal funding. Hundreds of staff members have been disciplined and services cut.”
And this place is still open for business? Good Grief !! Whatever happened to “do no harm?”
#11, Gig, Even this woman had been having problems for three days. Had she gone to a primary care doctor to start with she would still be alive.
Maybe, a friend had pain for 1 hour, went to the doc who rushed him to the ER and started immediate surgery. He came within 15 minutes of dying from the same problem (BP 20 / 10). Peritonitis sucks, but that hospital sucks more.
This is just Sicko!
This whole thing is a tragedy. I’m curious to know the whole story. It said that she had been seen and worked up a few times already and even had her discharge paperwork on her. She wouldn’t have been discharged unless she was stable at the time so she must have had a sudden perforation of her bowel.
I wonder how she was on her previous visits. Was she “nicel” or was she combative and abusive to the staff. I can tell you that if you treat people at the hospital poorly, you better be prepared for the consequences because ALL of those people are overworked and underpaid (even the doctors) and they put up with abuse all day long. People continually using the ER as their personal after hours cough & sneeze clinic is a total abuse and drain on the system.
The whole situation is just awful.
19 – It’s probably not right to blame the victim, but you’re right – how you treat people who work at a hospital can make a huge difference in the care you receive. I had to spend a few weeks in a VA hospital a couple years ago, in a ward with six patients. One guy would go on and on about how stupid the nurses were, never did anything right, blah blah blah. That old fart would press the call button and wait for hours before one of the nurses finally drew the short straw and came in to find out what he wanted. None of the rest of us had any problem getting attention when we needed it. Those overworked, underpaid people were there to help and all they really needed from patients was a little good humor and appreciation.
Even so, I doubt someone, however unpopular, would have been left writhing on the floor, ignored. Not even Mr. Bitch Bitch Bitch.
19,
I’m curious how polite the average person suffering from a fatal abdominal condition would manage to be. How polite would you be if you were suffering and trying to get some indifferent shithead to recognize your need and see beyond their short-sighted perceptions?
Apparently the Chris Rock joke about streets named “Martin Luther King” pertains to hospitals too.
Firstly…Angel….no…this hospital is one of several run by Los Angeles County. Minority(hispanics, asians, black,) employment in the over all system is 69%….that is from groundskeepers all the way to Administrators. This particular hospital is in a high minority area, and has an even higher rate of minority employees. It’s a piss poor hospital that they can’t shut down because of the load it handles….without it open the whole system is a house of cards and would collapse. This all based on a very bad management system at this particular hospital and the federal law that says they must treat ANYONE who comes to their doors, and approximatly 3 million illegal aliens a year show up at this hospital and 3 others on top of the already huge indiginet poor and working poor population of the county.
This woman seems to have tried to get help, but no one did the proper tests to find her problem. Most likely out of being overworked or even because the county has regulations governing when the expensive scans and other high cost treatments can be done.
L.A. county is a high concentration area for illegals. It’s schools and hospitals are simply overwhelmed and the feds require them to educate and give medical care to these people, but refuses to reimburse them for that schooling or medical care. So people like this lady, who is a legal citizen get the shaft. This whole situation is going on every hour of every day all across the southwest, because states just simply don’t have the funds to care for 12 million plus people who are not paying direct taxes to support these mandated services. The health care money is being sucked up by illegals who refuse to use the clinics for fear of being deported, so they use the ER’s knowing they won’t be turned in. In the meantime, those who have low paying jobs, or are seniors retired or just plain poor, but ARE citizens are getting spotty, low grade care and are slipping through the cracks.
And before you pro-illegals folks start flaming…..for every study done to try and show these people pay their way, there is 3 studies done by unbiased(no dog in this fight) University and social welfare groups showing that the illegals are a net drain on our economic structure.
I would like our border closed, all illegals in prisons(36% of those incarcerated in California, 34% of those in Arizona) deprted immediatly. All illegals allowed 1 year to leave and regfistar to come back legally with work visa’s, and the border re-opened with tight security checks. A worker visa program allowing 500,000 hispanics a year in put in place….and a set up to allow them to apply and eventually get citizenship. But, they MUST go home first.
Then when stuff like this happens, it will simply be because of some snotty receptionist or nurses aide at the front desk, and not because the whole system is broke.
My cousin almost cut off his thumb completely about a year ago and went to the emergency room and they made him set for 3 hours before seeing him, in the meantime blood was gushing out, etc. It’s getting bad…
#23….actually…i stated this lady is legal…..I may have been wrong on that, I can’t find out if she is or isn’t….hell, she may have been part of the problem I was talking about.
My worst emergency room story happened when I was a kid.
I seriously hacked myself camping and limped from civilization to a hospital. By then the wound was in raging full-pain mode.
First, the nurse came in and scrubbed the wound with a hand brush and Phisohex. She scrubbed and scrubbed since the would was full of all kinds of dirt and whatever.
Then another nurse came in and gave me a local anesthetic.
I was too young to understand that it should have been the other way around. Crimmeny that hurt!
malingerer
#25, joshua,
Your fine legal mind might have been better attuned to her nationality IF you had read the article before writing how terrible our immigration policy is. Her nationality has nothing to do with the treatment she received.
The fact is, the hospital screwed up, big time. Her discharge clearly stated that she was to:“return to ER if nausea, vomit, more pain or any worse.”
In case Oxford or home schooling didn’t help your researching abilities, the article also states,: … Rodriguez, a California native, …
But hey, your spelling is improving. Some, anyway.
How horrible! These type of things shouldn’t happen here. How can this hospital stay open?. I read in other articles that this has been an ongoing problem at that hospital. (why would you go there???) It makes me think, what if it were me or worse, one of my children that needed immediate medical attention. Who gets blamed when things like this happen? Is any ONE person there going to pay for it?
This is a disgrace to our medical facilities!!! People say this is the land of opportunity! If the medical staff at the hospital had just put their personal reasons aside on why the lady shouldn’t be treated maybe she would still be alive. My first question is who was the decision maker during the shift? Not only would I hold that person liable everyone else on staff that sood around and watched this poor women die of slow death I would hold responsible, including the hospital. This is not acceptable!!! What ever happened to the law of everyone must be treated? Our medical system is the worst!!! Our government needs to take some notes on how other countries run their medical systems then we would have less people loosing their lives unnesasarily. Three children lost a mother what a shame!!! Who will take care of them? Possiblly our government? Let’s see, what would make more common sense, take care of the patient and truly take the time to assess her condition and treat her which would be far less then raising three children without their mother? Let’s not begin to think how traumatic this is going to be to them for the rest of their lives. That whole hospital needs to be cleaned up starting with every employee that had the opportunity and stand up and do what their job descrition is and not be a follower with the rest of the staff!!! If people choose to go into the medical field then that is what they chose to do which is to help the sick. It’s as simple as that. That poor family! Yes by all means there are people that take advantage of the Emergency room in every hospital but did the staff really think that this woman was faking her pain? What did they exactly do the previous times when she came in for help? I would say the same thing, so by them saying they treated her and released her I would really like to know the length of treatment she received? I’m sure it’s all on her release forms right? Or did they prescribe a pain pill and send her off ? Take two asprins and call me in the morning? Is that what they call taking care of her? I don’t think that is adequate care. And for the sheriff well, maybe if they stepped in and said something to the staff she would still be alive. Oh wait it’s more important to see if she had any warrants out for her arrest. Duty first, right? Isn’t part of their duty to make sure all people are safe? Even if she did have an warrant out couldn’t they have treated her and handcuffed her to the hospital bed? Wow I really think that she would of had the strength to run away she only was in the fetal position on the floor I’m sure she was ready to run a marathon in her condition!!! People just do not use common sense. Put your egos aside and do what your job requires you to do. Maybe we would have less law suits against the medical facilities and doctors here. I think so, This is an absolute disgrace!!! You all should be ashamed of yourselves what a medical facility you are!!! I hope that some caring lawyers take on this case to clean this hospital up starting with the staff .
This article is incomplete. What did they find during the autopsy if they even did one? Was there some surgical instrument(s) or sponge(s) left inside her after surgery? Or was this a case of undiagnosed Appendicitis?
There has got to be more to this story than was written!
And a hospital with linoleum on the floors? All hospitals I have ever been to have stone like granite tiles for high wear resistance and cleaning ease!