Yesterday we gave creepy “Dr. Robert S. Lai” the “Say Whaaat?” award for, among other things, inadvertently perforating a woman’s colon and refusing to admit that his slip of the knife was in any way negligent.
Today, honorable mention must also be given to University Hospital in Syracuse, NY where Dr. Lai carried out his handy work, as well as other dangerous hospitals throughout the state and country. As loyal readers of ThePopTort are well aware, hospital safety and patients’ rights are a big deal to us—especially in New York State because, well, we live in New York State! In fact, last March, we traveled to Albany with other advocates hoping to persuade New York lawmakers to improve hospital safety and not take away the legal rights of patients.
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that hospital errors caused up to 98,000 deaths per year in the United States. “We haven’t been forthright about the dirty little secret,” Art Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers, told the New York Times in yesterday's article. “It’s nine years later, and we can’t even tell you it’s better. How is this permissible?”
Add to this a new problem covered today in the New York Times, about more and more people going to the emergency room for primary care because of the dismal state of health insurance in his country. And guess what? IOM also found that the ER is the place in the hospital where most negligence occurs.
With respect to University Hospital, its slogan may be, “The best care. When you need it most,” but its track record suggests anything but. Among other things, State Health Department reports discuss an infant who was discharged prematurely after surgery, only to return in less than 48 hours with kidney failure, and another report showing more than one surgery done on the wrong body part(!).
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