Hospital staff and 911 operators refuse to help woman dying on the floor

spike

spike

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June 12, 2007 (KABC-TV) - Edith Rodriguez, a 43-year old mother of three, died last month, writhing in pain on the floor of King Harbor Hospital's emergency room lobby, as the staff at the hospital allegedly ignored her.

On Tuesday, recordings of 911 calls were released. On the calls, other people in the emergency room tried in vain to get help.

It is a case sending shockwaves throughout county government and the community that the hospital serves.

The hospital, King/Harbor (formerly King-Drew) Medical Center, has been through numerous overhauls, failing time and again to make necessary improvements.

The death of 43-year-old Edith Rodriguez displays a serious lapse, according to the supervisors.

She was discharged from the hospital, yet she remained in serious pain. She never left the hospital grounds; she got to the emergency room and collapsed.

Recordings of two 911 calls were released on Tuesday. One is from a bystander, the other is from Rodriguez's boyfriend, Jose Prado, who spoke through a interpretor and tried in vain to get help.

Operator: I'm trying to get an interpreter for you, sir ... can you find out what his emergency is, please?

Caller (Prado through an interpretor): I'm in the emergency room, my wife is dying. The nurses don't want to help her out.

Operator: OK, what do you mean she's dying? What's wrong with her?

Caller (Prado through an interpretor): She's vomiting blood.

Operator: OK, and why aren't they helping her?

Caller (Prado through an interpretor): They're watching her. They're watching her there and they're not doing anything. They're just watching her.

A bystander also tried to get help for Rodriguez.

Operator: What's your emergency?

Caller: There's a lady on the ground in here, in the emergency room at Martin Luther King and they are overlooking her, claiming that she's been discharged and she's definitely sick, and ... they're just ignoring her.

Operator: What do you want me to do for you, ma'am?

Caller: Send an ambulance out here to take her somewhere where she can get medical help.

Operator: OK, you're at the hospital ma'am. You have to contact them.

Caller: They have a problem, they won't help her.

Operator: Well, you know if you're not pleased with the result you're getting from them, you know we can't ...

Caller: Well it's another patient. I'm not pleased with the results.

Operator: 911 is used for emergency purposes only, life-threatening emergencies.

Caller: This is an emergency.

Operator: It is not.

In addition to the 911 tape, the supervisors have viewed surveillance video of the emergency room. They are appalled at how many people ignored Rodriguez.

Much of the blame was placed on the head nurse who failed to assess the gravity of the situation.

"Here you had a situation where you had a dozen people in a emergency room, nobody got up to help. The janitors came over to clean the vomit around the victim. They did a diligent job cleaning the vomit but they didn't take one look at her," Zev Yaroslavsky, L.A. County Supervisor, said.

"If you have the wrong people who are in charge, you cannot turn around something that starts going in a very negative way. This nurse who made the decision that this woman was not really hurt that badly or that she was, I don't know what her decision was, but she obviously decided the woman was not in the need of immediate care. That should have been turned around," Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke, L.A. County Supervisor, said.

King/Harbor Medical Center has been under fire since 2003 because of numerous deaths under questionable circumstances.

Scores of people have been fired, including the head nurse who was involved in that latest incident. The hospital remains under federal investigation.

The board of supervisors is calling for more training, but it has been a challenge. Supervisor Yaroslavsky: "How do you train a person to care?"
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http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=5391370
 
Actually, it was pointing out what the staff was probably thinking at the time. The joke is that the boyfriend (of a mother of three) needed a translator.

There's still time to beg the Queen's forgiveness.
 
Healthcare is not a right. Its a business. If you don't belong to 'the club', they usually will send your ass packing.
 
How wonderful to live in a place where it is a right. I could walk straight in from the street, mutter something barely understandable, and their only concern is what I ate that day. *thankful*
 
Coming to a hospital near you
flooding our healthcare system with illegals
ain't making things better for anyone.

Don’t get inna car wreck in vast portions of Phoenix
because all the emergency rooms are all closed down.

The feds say you have to offer care to any illegal
that walks in the door whether they can pay or not.

But those evil doctors, nurses and support staff
have the audacity to think they should get a pay-
check so they can feed their families!

Solution, rather than lose money hand over fist
come out ahead by closing it down.

I received a pamphlet from the city urging me
to vote yes on a proposition to raise MY own
property taxes so they can afford to keep
funding the county hospital, with the straight out
threat that if I didn't vote to pay more taxes
the illegals would over run my white man's hospital.

I voted against it cuz I've already been overrun
but it passed anyway.

Yep turn America into a third werld country and whine
like a baby. (and get called racist to boot).
 
I don't wanna hear about yer Cuban style commie healthcare,
anytime someone can afford it they come here for the good stuff. 1st world heathcare ain't free
and it sure ain't free to third world illegals.

*whips out bluecross blueshield healthcare card*
icon10.gif
 
this reminds me of an experience my mom recently had (though she is now alive and well).
she broke her rib and developed bursitis in her hip which made it pretty much impossible for her to sit without excruciating pain, and she was sitting in the waiting room of the ER bawling but they didn't pay any attention to her. so she laid down on the floor, because that didn't hurt as bad as sitting, and they GOT MAD AT HER!
at least they took her to a gurney so she could lay down.
but i'm just like, WTF??

a lot of this bizznatch needs a serious overhaul.
 
spike said:
You'd be dying on the floor just like this lady with your Blueshield card in your hand.

Interesting how you guys want to blame this on illegals without any evidence. This hospital has been a mismanaged shit hole for years.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-kingdrewpulitzer-sg,0,1507651.storygallery

This has nothing to do with illegals.
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funny, I don't recall suggesting that she was an illegal. I thought I made that clear in my second post. Go back and read it again, Spike.
 
Ha ha Ha! Spikey yer talkin' out yer ass as usual
she IS (was) illegal and its

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital and it is a county hospital

and no I'll be going to a real hospital not county with mah bluecross card

good try homestar
 
Winky said:
Ha ha Ha! Spikey yer talkin' out yer ass as usual
she IS (was) illegal and its

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital and it is a county hospital

and no I'll be going to a real hospital not county with mah bluecross card

good try homestar
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She was a citizen born in the US.

Now who's talking out their ass as usual? :laugh:
 
where’s the link to the birth cert Big guy?

ya gots her valid social security number not the one
she's used from the old dead white woman?
and what is her excuse for having a perforated bowel
on the tax payers dime? Hmmm?

Inquiring minds wanna know?

not really we couldn't care less
she deserved to DIE!!!!

I wanna know whats goin’ on with Paris!
 
spike said:
I didn't say you suggested she was an illegal.

Read mine again.
Click to expand...


I just did. After my second, unc and Star made no illegals comment. I responded to Star. Then we've got winky, who made a comment about illegals and healthcare, commies and health care, but didn't address this specific case. Then Ash, who talked about her own anecdote, but made no mention of the LA case, nor illegals. Then you.

Help me out.


To rewind to the top, I mentionned that likely the nurses at the ER put this off as someone trying to just line, and probably an illegal. Something that does happen, and happen here, all the time. They come in and drop to the floor, often hitting their nose deliberately to spill blood. Then the person with them starts yelling and making a fuss (there's always someone with them. usually someone that doesn't speak the language ... just to confuse things), to get them shifted straight into treatment. Usually once they're there, they're treated for whatever they came in for (or even just get the chance to rifle through a few drawers) before anyone realizes that there's no paperwork, or payment. Looks a lot like the initial description printed to me. I expect that the hospital staff of most hospitals are fairly jaded to it, 'specially when they see an off-white skin tone. Along the border even more so. I should mention that when I made that comment, I'd no idea where in the US that happened.

Here, it's usually middle east or indian types.


And as for the 911 operators ....... you're already in a hospital ... what are they supposed to do? C'mon, reality check. If you're already in a hospital and noone's reacting ... they're supposed to assume that everyone in the hospital is wrong ... over the phone?
 
OMG Prof don't tell the truth of the situation no its the evil gubermint that owed her everything!!!
 
Professur said:
I just did. After my second, unc and Star made no illegals comment. I responded to Star. Then we've got winky, who made a comment about illegals and healthcare, commies and health care, but didn't address this specific case.
Click to expand...

Right, so if you read it again then you noticed that I said "blame this on illegals". That did not indicate that someone accused her specifically of being illegal (until Winky's recent flub) but that people were blaming the situation on illegals.

For instance you said the staff probably thought she was illegal and then there's Winky's silly rants about illegals.

Like I've pointed out with the link this hospital has a history of dangerous mismanagement and that this is a fault of the staff and the 911 operators.
 
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