Woman Dies as 911 Calls from Inside Hospital Are Ignored
Ms. Rodriguez entered the emergency room bleeding from the mouth and was seated in the waiting area. Despite the apparent emergency of the situation, hospital staff repeatedly told Ms. Rodriguez and her boyfriend that she would have to wait. After 45 minutes of waiting in pain, Prado called 911, pleading in Spanish for the operator to send an ambulance to transport Ms. Rodriquez to another hospital. The operator refused, referring Prado to hospital staff for assistance.
Nearly 10 minutes later, a bystander who was concerned with the situation placed an additional 911 call on Ms. Rodriguez's behalf. According to tapes, she pleaded with the operator to send an ambulance to transport the patient to a nearby emergency room. "She's definitely sick and there's a guy that's ignoring her," the female bystander says on the tapes. The operator's declaration? "I cannot do anything for you for the quality of the hospital. ... It is not an emergency. It is not an emergency ma'am," he said. Frustrated, the woman ended the conversation by saying, "May God strike you too for acting the way you just acted," to which the operator replied, "No, negative ma'am, you're the one."
According to relatives, Rodriguez never received care, and when the police were contacted in a final effort to expedite her situation, they instead arrested Rodriguez on a parole violation. Rodriguez allegedly died while being wheeled out of the hospital by officers.
Both state and local officials are looking into the case as part of an ongoing investigation. Harbor Hospital has been given 23 days to review their procedures and actions or risk losing federal funding.
Source: The Associated Press, "Tape: 911 Operators Did Little to Help Dying Woman in Er." CNN.com.
URL: (www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/13/hospitaldeath.probe.ap/index.html)
Published by Katie O'Connor
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7 Comments
Post a CommentThose responsible should be fired and perhaps have criminal charges brought up against themselves should the investigation show its deserved. This is a horrible travesty and my heart goes out to this poor woman's family. Very nice reporting of this.
My family was just talking about this incident. My own father went through a similar situation just weeks ago, being ignored in the emergency room with life threatening illness. I hate to say it, you have no clue how much I do...but in his pain my father stopped speaking english and switched to mumbling in spanish. The staff dealt with it by telling him to sit down and ignored his pleas for help while person after person came through the emergency room after him and recieved help right away. When I got there and found out what happened, by that time he keeled over and they noticed, I was loud....in English. I feel so much for this family.
Terrible news. I read a few months ago that a child called 9-1-1 like he was taught to do, and the operator thought it was a joke-- his mother died.
That is horrible. Absolutely appauling.
Wow this is unbelievable. Only in America
wow! very sad!
omg, that really is a shame. If it was their mother or grandmother they would of helped right away. What kind of world are we living in?