Cyrus Dugger

Fixing The Real Problems With Health Care - Instead of Creating A Problem To Be Fixed

This pre-election article comprehensively sets the record straight and describes the distortion of the problems in our health care system by self-labeled tort “reformers.” Below the article I have included a story of possible malpractice that was left in the comments section of Tort Deform that makes the abstract points made in the following article all the more real and compelling.

“Diagnose problem, cure it at the polls COMMENTARY DAVID I. FALLK IT IS TIME that the deceptions, diversions and denials being pushed by so-called “tort reformers,” particularly in the medical establishment, are exposed and rejected. Such “reform” is, in reality, nothing more than avoidance of responsibility and accountability.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine blew the cover off the full extent of negligence and diminished care in our nation’s hospitals, placing the annual death rate from preventable errors at near 100,000>. Although this largely hidden epidemic has been claiming the equivalent of two or three jumbo jet crashes every day, doctors’ groups and hospitals have tried to excuse or ignore that fact. But last year, even the Journal of the American Medical Association was forced to concede that the IOM’s numbers were probably too low.

Recently, Newsweek’s Oct. 16 issue nailed the true crisis facing Americans as hospital health care quality, not the legal system. As a result, health care experts are finally owning up to the idea that health care reform must start with acknowledging mistakes, disclosure to families and taking responsibility for errors.

Those errors include misdiagnoses, delayed diagnoses, prescription mistakes, mixed-up lab reports, wrong-site surgeries and surgical instruments left inside patients, all of which cause unconscionable suffering and death in America. The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council and the state’s Patient Safety Authority tell us that hospital-acquired infections, which had previously been hidden from public disclosure, >needlessly add $2 billion to health care spending in Pennsylvania annually.

Similarly, it is wrong to blame any shortage of doctors on anyone but the health care establishment itself. Last year, USA Today published an eye-opening expose documenting how medical groups themselves worked for decades to control and limit the number of doctors being trained in America.
Other articles have explained the complexities involved in how and why physicians choose specialties and places to practice. Chief among those factors are differences in reimbursement rates, availability of support services and lifestyle choices.

An overwhelming body of evidence now confirms doctors have an insurance problem, not a lawsuit problem. >Statistics gathered by the courts show that during the past five years, while doctors’ insurance rates were climbing, the number of malpractice lawsuits filed in Pennsylvania dropped by nearly 40 percent. Nationwide, liability insurers raised doctors’ rates 120 percent, while the amount of money paid to victims and their families rose less than 6 percent during the same time period.

Last week, it was disclosed that the chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group, William McGuire, was paid more than $522 million between 1992 and 2005, and he could be leaving the company with additional compensation that could double that figure.

Sadly, all we hear from the medical community and politicians like Lynn Swann, Sen. Rick Santorum [who subsequently lost re-election] and U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood is how we need to “fix” the legal system by arbitrarily limiting the amount of money seriously injured patients can recover in cases where negligence and malpractice have already been proven.
Unlike those politicians who bow to pressure from their insurance industry supporters, the drug lobby and big business, we need elected officials who won’t curtail average people’s rights to pursue justice in the courts.
Election Day provides a way for ordinary citizens to fight back and show politicians like Swann, Santorum, Sherwood and their allies in the responsibility-avoidance lobby, that we can no longer afford their misdiagnoses of the problem and snake-oil remedies.” (link)

Here is the previously mentioned testimonial of the wife of a man who may have been the victim of medical malpractice (if you would like to get in touch with the person who wrote this testimonial you can email me at cdugger@drummajorinstitute.org).

“In April 2005, my husband died in an emergency room.

I’ll start at the beginning. He had discovered a rash on his arms and legs, and his digits had begun to swell up. We arrived at the emergency room at 5:00 PM and he was seen very quickly by the screener. When his blood pressure was taken, it was extremely high. The interviewer said he wanted to move us to another waiting room, the one directly connected to the emergency room. We sat and waited. After about 2 hours, I talked to the girl behind the desk in the emergency room. I asked when someone would be seeing us. I explained that my husband had very high blood pressure and we had been waiting for 2 hours. She said she would send someone right in. We waited about 15 minutes more, and the same kid who had interviewed us when we arrived came in and took my husband’s blood pressure. Again, it was extremely high. The kid said he would let them know.

We waited another 2 and 1/2 hours and I approached he girl at the desk again. I asked what the problem was and when we would see a doctor,. She said that she had no beds available and we would have to wait until one was available. I told her that he didn’t need a bed, if they had to lay him on the floor, I wanted someone to check on him immediately. She assured me that it would happen. We waited another 15 minutes and finally she came and took us to a room in the emergency room. At that time, we appeared to be the only people seeing a doctor – all the other rooms were empty.

The woman who examined my husband was an intern; or perhaps a nurse practioner. When she looked at the record, she said there must be some mistake. We couldn’t have been waiting for 5 hours. It was now 9 pm.

She first took his blood pressure and it was now extremely low. She said he appeared to be fine now. She ran an EKG and it seemed fine. She then decided to take an x-ray and moved his gurney across the room to the x-ray equipment. I went back to the waiting room. Two minutes later, a woman came in and asked to speak with me. It seems that when they were trying to set him up for the x-ray, my husband’s body shut down – complete system shutdown!. They had to refib him 4 times to bring him back. They weren’t sure that he would survive the night.

We waited for an on-call doctor to get to the hospital. When I talked with him, and when he asked about how this had come about, I told him the story. I said that I figured he was fine because his blood pressure had dropped. The doctor said that should have been the first clue that there was a problem. People’s blood pressure didn’t just go up and down so drastically. Someone should have acted quickly. He said my husband’s lungs were full and he had an infection running through his body.

On the one hand, I consider myself lucky that we were in the emergency room when he collapsed. On the other hand, someone should have checked on him immediately and started treatment for the infection. But no one did anything.

As it turns out, my husband had sustained a tick bite and the infection was
Rocky Mountain Spotted fever.

Ye, my husband lived. Yes, he was in a coma for 8 days. And, yes we did find out what his problem was. He was moved to St. Joseph’s in Atlanta the next day. Thank God for St. Joe’s.

My husband and I have discussed the incident. He actually doesn’t remember any of it.
But I guess that’s okay too.

If an Emergency Room won’t provide emergency services, what good are they?

When my husband was out of the hospital and doing well, I sat down and wrote a letter to the hospital administrator. I figured they would want to change their practices or something. I never received a reply. Not even a form letter saying thank you for your comments. I doubt that anyone did anything about it. If we ever need help again, Northside Hospital will be the last place I go."