MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Aug 14, 2017 13:34:22 GMT -5
a slight slip of the knife during a surgery is what I would consider human error. Not updating/checking charts before giving a patient meds or giving them a newborn while they are hopped up on med is negligence IMO.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 14, 2017 13:58:27 GMT -5
a slight slip of the knife during a surgery is what I would consider human error. Not updating/checking charts before giving a patient meds or giving them a newborn while they are hopped up on med is negligence IMO. I guess I disagree. I think there are (thankfully) very few people in this world who go into work planning on hurting anyone or making a mistake. When I make a mistake I only cost my company time, money, and potentially upset clients. Anyone in the medical field knows the consequences are much higher. I'm not sure that anyone should jump to criminal charges in cases like these. What you're saying is the difference between negligence and premeditated murder though.
I'm not sure it's much of a jump. If you are found to have done something which any reasonable person (much less a medical profession) would/should understand is likely to lead to a patient's injury/death...that doesn't seem like a big leap to criminal negligence. Doesn't seem much different from someone intentionally leaving their kid in the car alone on a hot day while they try to "be quick" running into the store and something happens. They made a conscious decision to put a child into a dangerous situation that anyone should have known was a dangerous situation. I don't think anyone is saying they did it intentionally or in a premeditated way to hurt the child on purpose.
If you hired a babysitter to watch your child, and your babysitter decided to hand the child over to someone they knew was on meth while they left and something happened to your child...would you feel like they were criminally responsible? Or would you say "oh, just a mistake I guess"?
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Aug 14, 2017 14:10:16 GMT -5
What you're saying is the difference between negligence and premeditated murder though.
I'm not sure it's much of a jump. If you are found to have done something which any reasonable person (much less a medical profession) would/should understand is likely to lead to a patient's injury/death...that doesn't seem like a big leap to criminal negligence. Doesn't seem much different from someone intentionally leaving their kid in the car alone on a hot day while they try to "be quick" running into the store and something happens. They made a conscious decision to put a child into a dangerous situation that anyone should have known was a dangerous situation. I don't think anyone is saying they did it intentionally or in a premeditated way to hurt the child on purpose.
If you hired a babysitter to watch your child, and your babysitter decided to hand the child over to someone they knew was on meth while they left and something happened to your child...would you feel like they were criminally responsible? Or would you say "oh, just a mistake I guess"?
I might agree with you if the nurse knew the mother had been given the painkillers and ambien. What I'm not sure of is if the mother was 'awake' and coherent despite the drugs, I don't know if the nurse was intending to stay and supervise but had an emergency that pulled her out of the room. I don't know if the nurse knew that the drugs had been administered. I do not like the double standard we have when it comes to children and bad things happening to them. If a parent is giving a child a bath and they get pulled from the room for something and the child drowns it's a tragic accident. If a nanny does it, it's criminal negligence. If a parent accidentally leaves a child in a car, it's a horrible accident. Professional driver does it, criminal negligence. If a parent takes drugs and a nursing baby smothers to death, horrible accident. If a nurse hands over the baby to the mother, criminal negligence. no, parents doing that are being brought up on charges too.
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emma1420
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Post by emma1420 on Aug 14, 2017 15:01:48 GMT -5
What bothers me is that nurse, doctor, etc won't be personally financially responsible. And if criminal charges will start being common practice - would people still want to go into those fields? I mean, everyone makes mistakes, but the nature of medical professionals is that those mistakes can be deadly. So, in this case - was the proper documentation in the patient's file and nurse didn't think it was dangerous to give her the baby? Based on protocol - are they allowed to give babies when mothers are drugged up? I think this is where I start to not be sure how these things should be treated. I think medical professionals have a duty to be extra careful, but at the same time no person is immune from mistakes. For every policy or procedure there's going to be a way for human error to introduce a mistake. That being said, I think there are times where criminal and systematic negligence comes in to play. As long as human beings are involved mistakes will happen. I think what matters the most is that those mistakes are learned from and not repeated. I would much rather there be an investigation into the process that is being used. Is there a standard process where nursing staff checks the record before putting a baby in the room? If there was a standard process was it followed by the nurse in question? Were all the medication that the patient give recorded in the chart in a timely fashion and accessible to the nursing staff? I think doing that sort of investigation is far more useful to the staff involved, the hospital, and most critically future patients. Most mistakes are just that, mistakes. They aren't intentional. And I'd argue most of the time they aren't even careless mistakes without a reason (sleep deprivation being a huge driver of those sorts of mistakes). So I don't think that those people should be held criminally responsible. We all make mistakes. Unfortunately, healthcare professional's mistakes can kill or maim other people. It's the number on reason I work in an office, because my mistakes are unlikely to kill someone.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Aug 14, 2017 16:04:41 GMT -5
Most 'charts' are electronic records these days. Medications are scanned by bar code before given to the patient, and it is all electronically recorded. This is the way it was at the last 4 hospitals I've been in since 2011.
Was there negligence by the nursing staff? The infant was left with its mother for an hour, and in that hour something happened. Apparently nursing staff did not answer her call, and she had to go looking for someone. Calls don't always get answered.
So the question I have is that if the mother was so out of it, why did she not refuse the infant and let the infant be fed in the nursery? Was the policy such that it was breastfeeding at all costs, even if the mother was not capable? At that point, this becomes a policy issue if the nurse was following the policy directives. Does policy take the threat of a lawsuit to change a dangerous practice?
All details are sketchy, so it is hard to know.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 14, 2017 16:29:04 GMT -5
Most 'charts' are electronic records these days. Medications are scanned by bar code before given to the patient, and it is all electronically recorded. This is the way it was at the last 4 hospitals I've been in since 2011. Was there negligence by the nursing staff? The infant was left with its mother for an hour, and in that hour something happened. Apparently nursing staff did not answer her call, and she had to go looking for someone. Calls don't always get answered. So the question I have is that if the mother was so out of it, why did she not refuse the infant and let the infant be fed in the nursery? Was the policy such that it was breastfeeding at all costs, even if the mother was not capable? At that point, this becomes a policy issue if the nurse was following the policy directives. Does policy take the threat of a lawsuit to change a dangerous practice? All details are sketchy, so it is hard to know. Because she was so out of it perhaps? That's like saying "if you were so drunk, then why did you make the decision to drive your car home?"...ummmm because you were drunk and drunk people make bad decisions. If the story is true, at some point you have a sober nurse and a drugged up patient...you can't let the drugged up patient drive things as they relate to another living being (or even themselves really).
You can still bring the baby in to nurse, you just need to not leave the baby alone with someone pumped full of drugs, one of which is likely to put the mother to sleep.
I agree with you it might be a policy problem. If someone wrote a policy that said that babies should be left with their mothers unsupervised even when those mothers are on significant drugs, then someone should go after the policymaker who put down such a poor and dangerous policy.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 14, 2017 16:52:20 GMT -5
If she was still in the hospital 4 days after birth something was very wrong with her so this raises even more alarms. 4 days is the normal stay after a c-section, so it could have just been that. I've never heard of anyone staying that long fir a c section unless there are complications.
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Aug 14, 2017 17:15:33 GMT -5
First of all, what are the policies and procedures on breastfeeding, leaving newborns in the room, etc? It has to start there. What was the medical condition of them mother. What time were the drugs given? Who gave them and were they charted? What is the usual monitoring routine? How often are vitals and room checks done, etc.
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 14, 2017 17:21:01 GMT -5
4 days is the normal stay after a c-section, so it could have just been that. I've never heard of anyone staying that long fir a c section unless there are complications. My sister was in for 4 days after her c-section with no complications. And she was totally loopy on the drugs they gave her. Whatever they gave her (think it was Percocet) made her dopey and in love with the world. She was feeling no pain and I could definitely have pictured her letting the baby roll right off the bed while she dozed.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 17:29:12 GMT -5
Because a non professional on drugs is not the responsible party for decision making here.... the professional not on drugs is...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 17:57:58 GMT -5
4 days is the normal stay after a c-section, so it could have just been that. I've never heard of anyone staying that long fir a c section unless there are complications. I have and that's the standard allowed days for C-section on insurance policies.
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Mardi Gras Audrey
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Post by Mardi Gras Audrey on Aug 14, 2017 23:17:33 GMT -5
This case really makes me sad. That poor woman must have gone through hell... having to wake up and finding her little boy dead beside her. That hospital should be glad there is no way I can be o the jury (I don't live in OR).
The ignorant comments on the article make me sad and angry. The people saying it was her fault and she "should have been taking care of her baby"... they obviously haven't given birth or not lately.
As far the meds go, Vicodin is given when breastfeeding. Now they give Norco (same generic combo, slightly different amount of Acetaminophen). There are a lot of meds that are given while breastfeeding, even knowing it may go through the milk to the baby. The risk is usually minimal so they just have the mom continue breast feeding while using them.
As far as hospital protocol, I gave birth via C-section last winter. My son was left in my room with me the whole time and breastfeeding was expected. They checked on us a few times per shift but didnt really monitor me much. They seemed to assume that I knew what I was doing and didn't really follow up. DH ended up asking for some formula (the baby wasn't latching so he wasn't eating enough) and it was kinda hard to get.
I do remember the charge nurse getting snarky with my mom because she asked them to have someone remove the IV access in my hand. It wasn't taped well and I hadn't needed it for 2 days. My nurse said she would remove it but couldn't then because she was busy. I asked her to come back when she could because I was worried it would catch on something and rip out. She didn't come back to remove it and it bent sideways into my hand, causing lots of bleeding, At that point, my mom asked the charge nurse to have someone come take it out and was told "we are busy and will get to it when we can" (it had been 8 hours since I requested it out).
My nurse came back about 15 minutes later, apologizing,.... she had forgetten about it.
I can definitely see them throwing the duties of watching the baby and feeding him all on the mom, even if she wasn't in a proper state to take care of him.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Aug 14, 2017 23:33:15 GMT -5
As far as hospital protocol, I gave birth via C-section last winter. My son was left in my room with me the whole time and breastfeeding was expected. They checked on us a few times per shift but didnt really monitor me much. They seemed to assume that I knew what I was doing and didn't really follow up. DH ended up asking for some formula (the baby wasn't latching so he wasn't eating enough) and it was kinda hard to get. I think this all depends widely on the hospital. My milk never came in with my first. Every time we tried to get him to latch (every two hours) I had a freaking three ringed circus around my boobs....three people..my DH, the nurse, and my kid. We had to call a nurse before we tried latching. We even had to call the nurse when we tried using the SNS. They didn't even let us alone then. And then when the nurse noticed that DS started sucking out of the tube like a straw...they took that option away....because they wanted DS to learn how to eat properly. And it was back to working with me to have him latch/stay awake to eat. They also made sure a LC stopped by to see if I wanted further help. We'll see what it's like for this kid. I had my last kid 5 years ago. Even then, I wasn't left alone in the room for hours on end. We'll have to see if that's my experience this time around.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 15, 2017 6:41:42 GMT -5
I'm glad I had my kids when I did. This new way sounds awful.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2017 7:26:45 GMT -5
I'm glad I had my kids when I did. This new way sounds awful. Which way? Everyone has been describing totally different experiences. Some were left alone, some were never left alone... I don't really remember my first too much...that was all kind of a blur of 48 hours of labor and I was in tons of pain for several days after. But with Carrot 7 years ago it was awesome. The birthing center I was at was like staying in a fancy suite with room service and I could have nurses around as much or as little as I wanted. They would take the baby to the nursery or allow them to stay, whatever you wanted. The birth was super easy and I was up and running around right after, but I stayed until insurance kicked me out because the place was so nice.
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NoNamePerson
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Post by NoNamePerson on Aug 15, 2017 7:28:41 GMT -5
I'm glad I had my kids when I did. This new way sounds awful. Me too but I had mine back in the dark ages
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2017 7:36:38 GMT -5
My aunt was an obstetrics nurse in the 60's and 70's, so I get all kinds of stories. I'll take how things are now, thank you very much!
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NoNamePerson
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Post by NoNamePerson on Aug 15, 2017 7:50:25 GMT -5
My aunt was an obstetrics nurse in the 60's and 70's, so I get all kinds of stories. I'll take how things are now, thank you very much! Oh, I'm sure that's true. I can only go by my experience when I say I'm glad. I had a guardian angel looking after me when I got the OBGYN and Pediatrician that were "in charge" They both knew I was green as a gourd since had never held a baby till I had my own - never baby sat like so many others had.
Didn't mean to imply that things were better/worse back then just reading this thread made me realize how lucky I was.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 15, 2017 10:40:02 GMT -5
I wouldn't like being pressured to breast feed and whatever the latest du jour is. DD's stay for me was much better than DS's but neither was a good time. The care I got was good enough obviously.
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