Rhode Island may be the smallest state in the nation, but they’ve proven (yet again) to be just as capable of subjecting unsuspecting patients to preventable medical errors as the big kids. In the fifth case of wrong-site surgery since 2007, Rhode Island Hospital (the state’s largest) performed two operations on a patient’s finger, when it was supposed to perform separate procedures on two different fingers. (See video below.)
This latest blunder was precluded by three botched brain surgeries and a wrong-site procedure on a child’s cleft palate.
Notably, the three wrong-site brain surgeries, as was then reported, were due (all too typically) to “ego and overconfidence on the part of surgeons, and timidity on the part of nurses too afraid to speak up when they see something about to go wrong.” As punishment, the hospital was “fined $50,000, ordered to tighten up its procedures and required to report to the state every time a doctor fails to follow the rules. The hospital also took unspecified ‘corrective action’ against the doctors and nurses.”
As one consolation for patients, Rhode Island lawmakers so far have withstood insurance industry pressure to enact dangerous liability restrictions that other states have unfortunately forced on their constituents. One can only imagine what kind of danger Rhode Island patients would be in, if hospitals were no longer legally accountable for this kind of atrocious care. Let’s hope Congress recognizes this, as well.
This latest blunder was precluded by three botched brain surgeries and a wrong-site procedure on a child’s cleft palate.
Notably, the three wrong-site brain surgeries, as was then reported, were due (all too typically) to “ego and overconfidence on the part of surgeons, and timidity on the part of nurses too afraid to speak up when they see something about to go wrong.” As punishment, the hospital was “fined $50,000, ordered to tighten up its procedures and required to report to the state every time a doctor fails to follow the rules. The hospital also took unspecified ‘corrective action’ against the doctors and nurses.”
Obviously, that worked like gangbusters.
Amazingly, nobody was killed as a result of those particular mishaps—and Rhode Island Hospital is now being fined $150,000, ordered to install video cameras in all its operating rooms, and assign another clinician who is not part of the surgical team “to observe all surgeries at the hospital for at least one year.” But given its track record, the whole “slap’em with a fine and make them double-pinky swear to follow ‘enhanced safety protocols,’” seems anything but adequate.As one consolation for patients, Rhode Island lawmakers so far have withstood insurance industry pressure to enact dangerous liability restrictions that other states have unfortunately forced on their constituents. One can only imagine what kind of danger Rhode Island patients would be in, if hospitals were no longer legally accountable for this kind of atrocious care. Let’s hope Congress recognizes this, as well.
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