Woman ignored on ER floor dies
 

Saw it on CNN, and I found the article on MSNBC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19214215/

In short:

A woman is taken to the ER, she is on the floor puking up blood for over 45 minutes. Nurses and doctors do NOTHING to help. The janitor is cleaning up the blood around her. Still, nobody helps. The woman's husband calls 911 to see if paramedics could be sent to take his wife to another hospital. Dispatcher refuses. Later on, a woman, stranger to the family, sees this and also calls 911. Dispatcher again refuses to do anything.

Finally police respond, and put in the woman's name in the database. Finds out that she had a warrant for arrest on a minor charge, so they ARRESTED her, while she was still puking up blood and unable to move. They put her into a wheelchair to take her to the squad car, she collapses. She dies.

OHHHHHH the lawyer the family gets to sue the hospital is going to have an orgasm.

I don't care if she was or was not an illegal alien or a legal citizen (not found out yet) you do not let an innocent woman puke up blood and die, while doing nothing to help. You go into medicine to save lives, not save lives which you personally want to save. This woman had children for christ's sake.

This hospital has a history of negligence that would have resulted in fatalities.

I think this behavior of the hospital is despicable, and I would not care if the entire place burns down, shuts down, or goes out of commission for any reason.

Ahhhh, gotta love nationalized health care. I've got nothing to worry about.

Yay! Canada rules!

But it really does seem like the hospital has failed in it's role. Looks like there needs to be serious changes in the administration of the place. Beyond that, though, what can be said?

From reading that and watching the video, whatever faith I had in humanity is gone.

She died of one of the most painful things in the world. I thought I'd point out how sad that is.

And is there a reason why they refused to treat her? I couldn't find it in the article.

Seems health care in the United States is too much of a business, and not enough of a service. Stuff like this is the biggest problem in that approach to health care.

Thats the problem with the US healthcare system. Sure, you wait not nearly as long as you would up here, but that all depends on if they decide to treat you or not.

Is there any context to this? There has to be right? Im all for jumping down the throats of the American Medical system but not without hearing the other side of the story.

From what I've heard which is completly hearsay, is that she had a bowel bleeding, from gastric surgery. Also hearsay, is that it is hospital policy not to interfere with complications after voluntary surgery like that, in which case the patient in question is required to go to the surgeon who did the elective surgery. If that is the case, then it puts it into perspective.

Except that they're doctors and have the whole Hippocratic Oath thing, meaning that they are bound by their position as doctors to treat the sick and dying. Refusing to treat someone who is vomiting blood everywhere is a clear violation of "First, do no harm" on its own, not to mention calling the cops and having her arrested.

With elective surgeries like that, there are things in which conventional doctors, and conventional surgeons are not able to handle adequetly, becouse they are not trained in that field of medicine. "First, do no harm", includes, dont do procedures in which ou are not trained to do.