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New mother at St. Elizabeth's died from internal bleeding; doctors used to have devices to stop that, but they were repossessed by their maker because the hospital couldn't pay for them
By adamg on Thu, 01/25/2024 - 2:16pm
The Globe reports the financial crisis at the company that owns St. Elizabeth's - and Carney Hospital in Dorchester - can have direct patient impact, like when a woman is bleeding internally but the hospital no longer had the embolization coils that might have stopped the bleeding because it couldn't pay for them, and she has to be transferred across the city to another hospital, but by then it's too late and she dies.
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Comments
Speaking as a mother ...
I don't think I'd have had kids if I were of childberaring age now.
Pregnancy in this country has become intolerably fraught with mindless political control and made unsafe by hazards from multiple forms of bullshit. Then there are the financial issues, etc.
It is absolutely no mystery why younger women aren't having many kids. It is a completely rational decision given the risks.
I thought my uterus was safe
I thought my uterus was safe in Boston... kids are cute but every article like this that I see makes me think they it's too financially risky and health-wise dangerous.
It wasn't her uterus
She delivered the baby seemingly without problems, then developed bleeding in her liver. St. Elizabeth's eventually transferred her to Boston Medical Center, but by then it was too late.
The story end with a coda: Her husband, who has returned to their native Bangladesh with their child, did not know about the missing embolization coils until he was contacted by a Globe reporter.
Delivery wasn't seemingly without problems
@Adam - the Globe article says she went through 2 days of induction (which is brutal - I'd have been screaming for a C-section by then) and then after birth "Rashid was bleeding more than normal, and was taken to another room for a D&C... Rashid revealed to her nurse in the early evening that she was in some pain. Staff made a plan — medication and ice packs and heating pads. But that didn’t help. An hour later, Rashid was unable to sit still, then was wildly nauseous."
These days, people forget that childbirth is dangerous, even in a well-equipped hospital with well-trained staff. If there really was intelligent design, women's bodies would be designed for easy birth that was safe for both mother and infant. /s There are so many potential failure points and women's bodies sustain damage even after "routine" births. It's no wonder that SF author Lois McMaster Bujold features uterine replicators in her future universe.
Just wanna point out…
Inductions lasting days is actually quite normal especially if it the first child. I too had a two day induction and was generally fine. But yes childbirth is the closest to death a woman will get
Use some of that DHS grant the City Council wants to refuse.
Surely we can make the case that the two hospitals are essential to natural disaster response.
Money doesn't work like that
Private hospitals don't work like that.
The hedge funds would just pocket the money, and they would further cut costs on the maternity ward to fund the trauma center that money would require.
Besides, Boston doesn't lack for hospital or trauma center care capacity.
Too big to fail
It's a easy way to make money. Drain an essential company of funds until it's on the verge of closing and make the government pay to keep to the place open.
When people become angry, just put it on the feet of the government. After all, officials allowed it to get that bad. (Or conversely, regulations forced them into bankruptcy.)
Nah, I interned for that
Nah, I interned for that hospital and they spend and waste money like drunk sailors. Their CEO (who has a 40 million yacht) once said to the IT Director, “why the eff am I paying you guys?! I could dismantle the whole team right now.” Hope the State comes after his butt. No taxpayer should have to pay for their incompetence. There can only be one agency devoted to that and that’s the T.
Thank you and this has been my TED talk…
If a Hospital does not the
If a Hospital does not the funds for interventions to stop internal bleeding, then maybe they should not longer operate, or at a minimum not offer emergency care.
Im no doctor but internal bleeding seems like somthing a birthing hospital should be able to address.
From the article
It sounds like not everyone knew the machines required had been taken away or they might have sent the woman to another hospital sooner. (Although there is some ambiguity.)
The article also notes some other hospitals wouldn't have accepted her before the emergency as she was too advanced in the pregnancy when she came relocated to the area.
It wasn't other hospitals that wouldn't accept her
It was OB practices that wouldn't accept her as a pre-delivery patient (still wrong, IMHO). If St. E's had made the determination that she needed urgent care they couldn't give her, BMC would have almost certainly accepted the transfer.
"However St. Elizabeth’s defines itself on its website as a Level IV maternal care center, “the highest designation available from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.” According to that organization, basic interventional radiology, which includes the capacity for embolization, is a requirement for such a designation."
There should be sanctions against St. E if they designate themselves as providing a level of maternal care they can't provide.
Shouldn't be allowed to repossess life-saving equipment
There should have been something else the company could have done to get payment, but physically removing equipment needed to save people's lives in emergency situations is horrible.
Brought to you by
the same for-profit health company that made Quincy the largest city in Massachusetts WITHOUT a hospital.
I am still boggled by that
I am still boggled by that insane decision…
What else is missing?
Haven't read the article yet, but such a terrifying and tragic story. I live near St. Elizabeth's so they've been my hospital of choice for procedures but now I'm having second thoughts. What other equipment are they missing (that staff might not even know is gone)? What else might get repossessed? Even routine procedures can have complications so why risk using a hospital that might not be fully equipped?
I know it's
not just me here, but the outrage of this is just....immense
The US is one of the few countries
where maternal mortality has been *rising* over the past several decades. Absolutely shameful.
I wonder how much of that is driven by the attacks on reproductive healthcare -- just look at this map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_United_States
The US is one of the few
The US is one of the few developed countries without universal healthcare.
We aren't a developed country.
We're a Third World nation with nukes.
I guess Athens of America
Means Athens, Georgia now.
Or Athens, Ohio
There are many Athenian pretenders.
ok but in Stewart's defense, have you seen the CEO's yacht?
https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/lady-sheridan/
surely that's worth someone else dying right?
/s
That's what perplexes me. We
That's what perplexes me. We can blame lots of people like this but if the CEO of your company that dabbles in medical care can't keep medical equipment that can save a life but the CEO can own something so outlandish there is a problem here.
Way too often we hear "we can't afford" when in reality it's "the people on top need another billion dollars."
Can the manufacturer be charged with manslaughter or murder?
I see a good case that their actions led directly to the patient's death.
I don't see it the same way
If the equipment broke and the hospital could not convince a vendor to repair or replace it because they knew the hospital wouldn't pay the bill, would you be looking to fault the equipment vendor? Or if the hospital did not buy the piece of equipment in the first place.
The Globe's reporting says that "not every kind of hospital has this kind of equipment," but that St E's claims a designation of "Level IV maternal care center" which requires them to be capable of performing the procedure in question. A generic hospital in MA is not required to have this equipment.
She could have been admitted to a different hospital that never had nor claimed to have such equipment, and the outcome could have been the same. People do die in hospitals, even when they had a chance of survival.
Not necessarily
At a different hospital that never claimed to have such equipment the staff would have known they didn't have it, in which case they would have known to send her elsewhere immediately rather than waste time looking for equipment they expected to have that wasn't there. That extra time could have made the difference (I know, no guarantees).
It sounds Steward should be charged, not the manufacturer
It was their sloppy and ghoulish profit-driven management that dropped the ball here. Claiming to be level IV maternity ward, but then not having the capability to deliver on that claim sounds like outright fraud.
Were other facilities contacted
For an emergency need? It's not like our hospitals are 100s if miles apart.
I think we should start
I think we should start making CEOs and those making huge profits off of these hospitals while running them into the ground personally liable for stuff like this. If you are worth millions and you run things efficiently and things work I can't really say much but when you take institutions the public needs and treat them like personal piggy banks to bankroll yachts and extravagant toys then you should be put in trial when people die by a direct cause if your neglect. They had these tools and they were repossed. What else are their hospitals missing while he suns himself off the coast?
People go nuts when a public official somehow makes 250k a year and does a good job but then we see these bozos making tens to hundreds of millions while people literally die and from way too many people it's a shoulder shrug.
A nurse friend told me that
A nurse friend told me that there are a lot of things that Steward is doing to harm patients, like not using the proper IV processes etc. For profit in medicine sucks.
Sadly, there have been all
Sadly, there have been all sorts of questions about Steward's performance even before this.
- The closing of Quincy Hospital
- Carney is a ghost town (even if you lay aside some of its historical issues)
- Norwood has been closed for how long? Yeah, it was more than just a busted pipe in the basement, but srsly??!!
This latest pokes holes in any illusion of "Saint Elizabeth is a top-class"
Norwood has to be completely rebuilt
No burst pipe - massive flash flood.