The accountability of hospital staff

MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2011

The accountability of hospital staff

How much real accountability does the public health system actually have, one wonders? When a formal complaint over a relatively severe injury incurred during surgery while the patient’s proverbial lights were out can result in one single letter from the head of surgical services at Rotorua hospital – who never spoke to the injured person concerned at all – saying, pretty much,  sorry but while we acknowledge you’ve had this injury, no-one here is admitting to it, so to us it doesn’t exist except for the fact we are picking up the physio bill.

Is it just me or is there something terribly wrong with this picture? Yes, we’ve all heard about the terrible things that can happen in a hospital – my own mother, after a triple bypass surgery at Waikato Hospital was given 300mgs morphine rather than the 30mg she had been prescribed. To this day, they don’t know how she survived that – needless to say at 65, she was one very ill woman for a few days.

Did the hospital do anything other than let her know this had happened? Well, no – but the bottom line was at least they did that. If she hadn’t been the tough old bird she is, it is very likely it would have killed her – would we have heard about this slip up then?

In the instance above, the patient, who had had a six hour operation on a tumour in her upper neck, woke up later that night to a mother of a headache and to find an egg the size of a softball on her upper left skull area, blood and gunge all around it and through her hair – all of this witnessed by both family members and hospital staff. And this was after being three hours instead of the usual 45 minutes in recovery because every time she was moved a fraction, she would  scream in agony over her shoulder. This injury was not in relation to the surgery, according to the woman who did the scans on the shoulder; if it had been it would have been the shoulder opposite to the surgery. Her surgeon was absolutely puzzled the following morning when he investigated the lump and the mess that injury has created on the head and hair. He wasn’t there when the patient was moved, having finished his job after suturing the wound so could have no answer for how and when it could have happened. That something had happened, he didn’t doubt – but he had no idea what or when, other than the time frame when the patient was still unconscious.

The scans and xrays organized by the patient’s family doctor showed muscles on front and back of the shoulder had been pulled – much the same as you would get when someone is falling and you have grabbed an arm to try and unsuccessfully stop the fall. Two weeks after the operation, the patient still has only 30 percent use of the shoulder.

Yet no-one in the surgical team is saying anything. As far as the hospital is concerned, nothing happened despite the very obvious fact that something did. A formal complaint only got the one page letter and after seeing, I have to say that it was pretty disgustingly callous way to treat anyone.

So… what happens to the old folk who ‘don’t like to make a fuss”? How many people ARE being hurt when at their most vulnerable?

What about the kids, the babies? If a surgical team or the orderlies that handle these patients day in and day out cannot do so without a good understanding of the innate faith these patients and their families put in them to handle with care and dignity their loved ones when they are unable to do so for themselves – then what they hell are they doing in that job?

I’ve been looking on the net for any reports or reviews into just what does happen when it comes to ‘medical misadventure’ and so far, I’ve only been able to find one released in 2005 – and that more concerned with surgical mistakes – operating on the wrong person or the wrong limb.

I’m going to be digging a bit further – there has to be better answers than I’ve found somewhere. But thing I do suggest. If you or yours falls into the same category as the women above, then make a fuss. Jump and  down about it. Because it is unprofessional NOT to admit to causing injury, especially when the injury could create bigger problems for the patient than what they originally went in with. These medical professionals have a legal and moral set of choices when it comes to this kind of thing and letting the patient  and their family know exactly what happened so that appropriate health measures can be taken to ensure full return to health should be an absolute priority.