Talk about drive-thru medical care … North Carolina man tries to commit suicide by crashing his truck at a high rate of speed … into the ICU entrance of a hospital.
So should the pedestrians be hunted down and charged with murder? Man tries to help woman who is being beaten and becomes a victim himself. The assailant stabs him several times in the torso. He laid in a pool of his own blood while people walked around him, stopped and stared briefly before continuing on their way, or stopped and took pictures of him. Ninety minutes later, he was dead and no one had helped him. All of the passers by were caught on security camera.
Where have the morals in this country gone? This article has some answers.
When something is dead and you don’t know what to do with it, bring it to pathology. When something is alive and you don’t know what to do with it, bring it to the emergency department. Canadian police are having difficulty deciding what to do with multiple intoxicated patients arrested each day. After one intoxicated patient died in a police “drunk tank,” the RCMP are now bringing 15-20 intoxicated patients per day to the hospital for “medical clearance.”
In a related story, family members and several comments to the article are calling for murder charges to be filed against the police. Using Canada’s definition of homicide – “a person, by an act or omission, does any thing that results in the death of a human being, he causes the death of that human being notwithstanding that death from that cause might have been prevented by resorting to proper means” – could the family also be accused of murder by failing to help the patient get alcohol counseling?
“When this ER closes everybody’s unsafe,” says one nurse as she watched St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York close its doors this week. Prior to closing, the hospital’s debt topped $1 billion due to caring for New York City’s poor and uninsured patients. Now the closest Level I trauma center in New York’s lower West side is more than 2 miles away — in NYC traffic.
Oklahoma cuts state mental health budget. More and more patients with mental illness or substance abuse problems end up in the emergency departments. “We’re going to be more and more busy, and we’re going to lose opportunities and possibly lose lives. That’s a loss for society. Prevention is the way to go,” says one trauma surgeon.
Oklahoma’s response? Expect 12 percent more cuts in the near future.
Don’t worry, though, now everyone has insurance with the health reform bill. Problem solved.
Another entry in the “you don’t appreciate it until it’s gone” category. Large water main break near Boston means that 2 million people must boil water for at least a minute before ingesting it. Restaurants stop serving water, ice, and fountain drinks. Surgeons at hospitals were ordered to use bottled water to scrub before surgeries. Scrubbing with Evian? How gauche.
Bret Michaels improving? Treating physician states the Poison singer has an “unbelievable fight in him.” News conference on his condition planned for Tuesday. Keep the faith, Bret and family!
Should you have to pay for “balance billing” by a physician or not? Most people commenting on this article didn’t believe so. Another wrench in the system caused by the squeeze from insurance companies.
Simple solution in most circumstances: When prices for any services or medical testing are not clearly posted in advance, those services are free. Enable consumers to make a free market decision on how much they pay for care.
Not so fast on that health care overhaul, there POTUS … there’s already legislation seeking to repeal the hugely popular “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
Folding just a little too soon … Nurse settles malpractice case for $1 million during jury deliberations, then finds out that the jury exonerated her. Ouch.
Tough life being a medical malpractice plaintiff’s attorney. Just ask Thomas and Adam Malone as they fly their 11 seat airplanes between homes in the Bahamas, Palm Beach and the Chattahoochee River. They get 40% of gross recovery and have had more than one verdict higher than $45 million. Hey – jet fuel isn’t getting any cheaper, you know.
Medical malpractice case filings drop 39% in Pennsylvania, but rise by 60% in one Pennsylvania county. Know why? The Pennsylvania Supreme Court changed two procedural rules, requiring a professional to certify a case before it can be filed and requiring lawsuits to be filed in the county in which the alleged malpractice took place. Prior to the change, plaintiffs used to shop all around the state for more favorable forums. Columbia-Montour judicial district – home to two hospitals – saw the number of malpractice claims rise dramatically after the change in law. Last year two malpractice cases in that county went to trial and both ended in defense verdicts.
Even international medical malpractice insurers avoid the US. If you engage in medical tourism abroad, a company has created a new insurance policy for you. For example, if you’re from England and want a face lift in Thailand, you pay $389 to be eligible for payment of up to $100,000 in additional costs arising from medical complications – including reimbursement of legal fees for med mal claims.
Only catch is that you can’t purchase the policy if you’re a US resident and you can’t use the policy for treatment in the US.
Wunda wyyy that isth … (sorry, my tongue was in my cheek so the words were getting a little slurred)
