Jury awards $10 million in ambulance birth

MMiz

MMiz

I put the M in EMTLife
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Jury awards $10 million in ambulance birth

DeLAND, Fla. -- A jury has awarded $10 million to a Volusia County who sued an ambulance transport service over injuries her son received during his premature birth in 2003.

The jury decided last week that EVAC Ambulance was negligent for transporting Margarita Chess, who gave birth to her son while en route to the hospital. Her son was left with cerebral palsy after suffering a lack of oxygen to the brain.

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Terrible article, I have no idea what happened. I'm guessing that this was an interfacility transfer?
 
Yep, interfacility from a hospital with no OB or NICU capabilities.
 
Sure. Not all hospitals have a labor and delivery department. They're generally common enough to not get talked about, unlike, say, trauma services, but there are hospitals out there with out a L&D department and OBs on staff.
 
So what was the alternative?
 
Even worse I know some in MS that have no L&D and their ER's are staffed with nurse pracs, no MD's ever.
 
EMSLaw said:
There's such a thing as a hospital without OB capabilities?
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absolutely, and some hospitals are eliminating them so they do not lose money complying with the federal mandate (the alphabet soup for it is escaping me right now, long night) to provide birthing and stabilization service to those who cannot pay.

Another trick is for hospital systems to move all of their OB/GYN services to stand alone clinics in more wealthy communities farther away from poorer communities so that geography and the non emergent nature of the facility precludes indigent people from gaining access or care.

There are also (not related to OB ) EDs cutting down on the staff and resources (like CT scanners) in order to justify not being able to meet the needs of a patient and referring all but the easy money onto a different facility.

(no names listed to protect the guilty)
 
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Veneficus said:
absolutely, and some hospitals are eliminating them so they do not lose money complying with the federal mandate (the alphabet soup for it is escaping me right now, long night) to provide birthing and stabilization service to those who cannot pay.
Click to expand...

That's part of EMTALA, as I recall. I just find it hard to believe, since you would expect even a small local hospital to have the facilities for birthin' babies.

I understand that OB practice has among the highest, if not the highest, insurance rates (because everyone loves to sue if their baby didn't come out perfect), but the reasoning you've proposed strikes me as particularly mercenary.
 
EMSLaw said:
That's part of EMTALA, as I recall. I just find it hard to believe, since you would expect even a small local hospital to have the facilities for birthin' babies.

I understand that OB practice has among the highest, if not the highest, insurance rates (because everyone loves to sue if their baby didn't come out perfect), but the reasoning you've proposed strikes me as particularly mercenary.
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Precisely!

EMTALA requires stabilization including the stabilization of an unborn child. If delivery was imminent, then the breach of duty and deviation in standard of care falls on the sending facility, not the mode of transport. Regardless of that consideration, I am interested in knowing how EMS breached their duty and how a judge and jury can not take into account that the majority of CP cases are caused by intrauterine issues, primarily prenatal infections. Did mom have an infection as simplistic as a UTI? What was mom's prenatal care? How involved was it? I've worked with many rural OB/Gyn's and the majority emphasize the need to go to a specific facility with the needed capabilities to provide appropriate care. Was she given these orders from her physician and failed to follow them? Too many aspects unanswered from this poorly written article.
 
From what I've read, one of the issues against the ambulance crew is failure to divert to a closer facility sooner than they did. As far as the lawsuit goes, Flight, you're missing a big issue. All the plantiff has to do is say, "Blah blah blah, INJURED BABY. blah blah blah blah, INJURED BABY, blah blah blah. Do you really think most jury members are going to see anything but INJURED BABY and think that anyone and everyone involved has to pay?
 
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