Edith Isabel Rodriguez, victim of 'inexcusable' indifference of hospital staff
marilyn...@gmail.com
Upset she was not being treated at King-Harbor, two callers were told
she could not be sent to another hospital.
By Charles Ornstein and Francisco Vara-Orta, Times Staff Writers
June 13, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-calls13jun13,0,4051842,full.story?coll=la-home-center
In the 40 minutes before a woman's death last month at Martin Luther
King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, two separate callers pleaded with 911
dispatchers to send help because the hospital staff was ignoring her
as she writhed on the floor, according to audio recordings of the
calls.
"My wife is dying and the nurses don't want to help her out," Jose
Prado, the woman's boyfriend, told the 911 dispatcher through an
interpreter.
He was calling from a pay phone outside the hospital, his tone
increasingly desperate as he described how his 43-year-old girlfriend
was spitting up blood.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department dispatcher struggled to
make sense of his predicament, then urged him to contact a doctor or
nurse.
"Paramedics are not going to pick him up, or pick his wife up, from a
hospital, because she's already at one," the dispatcher said.
Eight minutes later, an unidentified woman, apparently another
patient, dialed 911 and reached a different dispatcher. After a short
debate about whether the call was an emergency, the dispatcher scolded
her and insisted that it was not. The 2 1/2 -minute call ended on a
hostile note.
"May God strike you too for acting the way you just acted," the
frustrated caller told the dispatcher, just before 2 a.m. on May 9.
"No. Negative ma'am, you're the one," the dispatcher responded before
disconnecting.
The patient, Edith Isabel Rodriguez, was pronounced dead at 2:17 a.m.,
the victim of "inexcusable" indifference by staff at King-Harbor,
county health officials later acknowledged.
Rodriguez lay untreated on the ER lobby floor for 45 minutes before
dying. A video camera captured the episode, showing that staffers and
patients stood by as a janitor cleaned the floor around her. She was
buried in Tehachapi on Tuesday.
The county coroner ruled that Rodriguez died of a perforated bowel,
with the injury probably occurring in her last 24 hours of life.
Experts have said that the condition might have been treatable if
caught earlier.
The incident is the latest high-profile lapse at King-Harbor, formerly
known as King/Drew, which has been dogged by troubles almost since its
inception. The Willowbrook hospital's fate is uncertain as it prepares
for a final review by federal officials to determine whether it should
retain crucial funding.
Rodriguez's death was just one of the King-Harbor issues discussed
Tuesday during a meeting of the county Board of Supervisors. Also at
that meeting, the county health services director disclosed that the
hospital had replaced its medical director, citing his handling of an
unrelated lapse in patient care. In that case, a man with a brain
tumor languished without treatment in the ER for four days before he
was taken elsewhere by family and friends for emergency surgery.
In Rodriguez's case, the 911 recordings were released by the Sheriff's
Department in response to California Public Records Act requests by
The Times. Both illustrate how confounding it was for the emergency
response system to handle a bizarre scenario in which a patient dying
in plain sight at a hospital could not get treatment there.
"What's real confusing ... was that she was at a medical facility," said
Sheriff's Capt. Steven M. Roller, who is in charge of the Century
Station, which handled the calls. "That poses some real quandaries."
At the same time, Roller said, the dismissive tone of the second
dispatcher, who was not identified, was inappropriate.
"As a station commander, I don't like any of my employees getting rude
or nasty with any caller, regardless, and in that particular case,
obviously, the employee's conduct could have been better," Roller
said. The employee received written "counseling," Roller said.
The unidentified dispatcher to whom Roller referred kept cutting off
the female bystander.
"Ma'am, I cannot do anything for you for the quality of the hospital
there," the dispatcher said. "Do you understand what I'm saying? This
line is for emergency purposes only.... 911 is used for emergency
purposes only."
The woman replied, "This is an emergency, mister."
The dispatcher cut her off. "It is not an emergency. It is not an
emergency, ma'am."
"It is," the woman said.
"It is not an emergency," the dispatcher replied.
"You're not here to see how they're treating her," the bystander said.
"OK, well, that's not a criminal thing. You understand what I'm
saying?" the dispatcher said.
"Excuse me, if this woman fall out and die, what [do] you mean there
ain't a criminal thing?" the woman said.
Roller said the Sheriff's Department does not have a policy for
responding to calls for medical aid from hospitals. He said the two
911 calls weren't linked by dispatchers because neither was deemed to
merit a response, and therefore neither was logged in the computer as
a call for service.
In the days leading up to her death, Rodriguez had sought care in the
King-Harbor emergency room three times. Each time she was released
after receiving prescription drugs for pain. On May 8, however, she
did not leave the hospital but instead lay on the benches in front of
its main entrance.
County police officers found her there and helped escort her to the
emergency room. There, a triage nurse told Rodriguez that nothing
could be done to help her.
Meanwhile, police ran a computer check on Rodriguez and found that she
had a no-bail warrant for her arrest. As she was being taken to a
squad car to be placed in custody, she became unresponsive. She died a
short time later in the ER.
On Tuesday morning, Rodriguez's family gathered at a Pico Rivera
memorial chapel to bid farewell to the California native, one of 13
siblings. They had delayed a funeral service for more than a month
because they didn't have money to pay for it. One of her sisters
arranged fundraisers, selling homemade tamales to pay the about $7,500
tab.
A wreath of red roses and white carnations with the banner "Beloved
Mother and Grandmother" adorned Rodriguez's pastel pink casket.
The 30 or so family and friends in attendance listened solemnly to the
priest's eulogy as a digital slideshow of pictures played on two flat-
screen televisions framing the casket. Her three grown children
quietly sobbed in the chapel's front row, holding two of her four
grandchildren.
"We know we have the responsibility to make sure justice is done for
our mother," said Edmundo Rodriguez, Edith's 25-year-old son, in an
interview at the service. "We just don't want this to happen again."
francisco.varaorta@ latimes.com
--
(INFOBOX BELOW)
Excerpts from 911 calls
Below are excerpts from two calls to 911 dispatchers in the minutes
before Edith Isabel Rodriguez's death.
First call,
1:43 a.m. May 9
Made by Jose Prado, her boyfriend, who spoke Spanish with an
interpreter on the line.
Interpreter: I'm in the emergency room, my wife is dying, and the
nurses don't want to help her out.
Dispatcher No. 1: OK, what do you mean she's dying? What's wrong with
her?
Interpreter: She's vomiting blood.
Dispatcher: OK, and why aren't they helping her?
Interpreter: OK, they're watching her and they're not doing anything.
OK, they're just watching her.
Dispatcher: OK, he needs to contact a nurse or a doctor and let them
know she's vomiting blood. Paramedics are not going to pick him up or
pick his wife up from a hospital because she's already at one.
--
Second call,
1:51 a.m.
Made by unidentified female patient who spoke English.
Dispatcher No. 2: What's your emergency?
Caller: There's a lady on the ground here in the emergency room at
Martin Luther King and they are overlooking her, claiming that she's
been discharged, and she's definitely sick and there's a guy that's
ignoring her.
Dispatcher: Well, what do you want me to do for you, ma'am?
Caller: Send an ambulance out here to take her somewhere where she can
get medical help.
Dispatcher: OK, you're at the hospital, ma'am. You have to contact
them.
Caller: They have a problem, they won't help her.
Dispatcher: Well, you know, they're the medical professionals, OK?
You're already at a hospital.
Caller: But you can still send an ambulance if that's my request.
Dispatcher: Well, if you're not pleased with the result you're getting
from them, you know, we can't....
Caller: It's another patient. I'm not pleased with the result that I'm
getting from 'em but it's another patient that's sicker, and did you
know she's down, all down on the ground....
Dispatcher: If you have a problem with the quality of the hospital,
OK, you have to contact the hospital supervisors, OK, and let them
know. The police have nothing to do with that, ma'am. This line, 911,
is used for emergency purposes only.
Caller: This is an emergency.
Dispatcher: Life-threatening emergencies. It is not! OK? If you want
to call us back on our business line, I'll give you the number.
Source: 911 tapes
--
On latimes.com King-Harbor woes
For complete coverage of the troubles at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor
Hospital, go to latimes.com/kingharbor. The page includes the 911
audiotapes, documents, previous stories, a message board and The
Times' 2004 series on problems at King/Drew.
--
Hyfler/Rosner
"marilyn...@aol.com" <marilyn...@gmail.com> wrote
in message
news:1181731470....@g37g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> Tragic Catch-911 for dying woman
> Upset she was not being treated at King-Harbor, two
> callers were told
> she could not be sent to another hospital.
>
> By Charles Ornstein and Francisco Vara-Orta, Times Staff
> Writers
> June 13, 2007
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-calls13jun13,0,4051842,full.story?coll=la-home-center
>
>
> In the 40 minutes before a woman's death last month at
> Martin Luther
> King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, two separate callers pleaded
> with 911
> dispatchers to send help because the hospital staff was
> ignoring her
> as she writhed on the floor, according to audio recordings
> of the
> calls.
What they need to do is close the hellhole and not change
the name of it. For those not in the know, there was a
series of articles about this 'hospital' in the LA times a
couple of years ago. They were posted here.
marilyn...@gmail.com
Won a big award, too, didn't it?
But I don't recall anything quite this
horrible...
Thriceshy
<marilynajohn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Tragic Catch-911 for dying woman
> Upset she was not being treated at King-Harbor, two callers were told
> she could not be sent to another hospital.
>
> By Charles Ornstein and Francisco Vara-Orta, Times Staff Writers
> June 13, 2007
>
This is just horrifying. The hospital staff involved should be
charged with manslaughter. Maybe that'll prick up their fucking ears
and improve the level of care.
Thinking the dispatchers need to find a new line of work. One less
dependent upon paying attention to what people are saying to you.
Kris
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Hyfler/Rosner <rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> What they need to do is close the hellhole and not change
> the name of it.
I read "'Inexcusable' indifference of hospital staff" in the Subject:
line and was already thinking "Hmmm ... King/Drew?" as I opened the
post.
This abbatoir masquerading as a place of healing stays open for one
reason only: for want of a better term, "political correctness."
It's "serving the black community," you see, and if it were closed,
they wouldn't be "served" as well. Personally, I'd say that whoever
is peddling that horseshit must really have it in for the black
community.
King/Drew isn't a disgrace to LA, or even the nation. It's a blot on
the whole medical profession. We all know that if Paddy Chayefsky
were still alive, he'd have seen just about all of the satire of
"Network" come literally true. If he could see King/Drew in action,
he'd probably wonder whether they used his script for "The Hospital"
as a training film.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Laurie Mann
Horrifying.
PirateJohn
wrote:
>
> This abbatoir masquerading as a place of healing stays open for one
> reason only: for want of a better term, "political correctness."
> It's "serving the black community," you see, and if it were closed,
> they wouldn't be "served" as well. Personally, I'd say that whoever
> is peddling that horseshit must really have it in for the black
> community.
>
Just as a minor point. If the poor lady's name is Isabel Rodriguez
and her boyfriend is named Jose and needs an interpreter who
understands Spanish, I would take a wild guess and assume that she was
Hispanic, not black.
And yes, I have met black folks in Mexico who speak great English and
claim that they have never been to the USA nor outside Mexico. So it
could happen.
Regardless of whether she's black, white, Hispanic, poor, wealthy, or
whatever she deserved better. And it sounds like the community
deserves a decent hospital there.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, PirateJohn <jo...@buccaneerpress.com> wrote:
> > This abbatoir masquerading as a place of healing stays open for one
> > reason only: for want of a better term, "political correctness."
> > It's "serving the black community," you see, and if it were closed,
> > they wouldn't be "served" as well. Personally, I'd say that whoever
> > is peddling that horseshit must really have it in for the black
> > community.
>
> Just as a minor point. If the poor lady's name is Isabel Rodriguez
> and her boyfriend is named Jose and needs an interpreter who
> understands Spanish, I would take a wild guess and assume that she was
> Hispanic, not black.
Sure. They also probably kill their share of white, Indian and Asian
patients, too. But they aren't the putative reason this place is
being kept afloat. And just incidentally, it's *our* tax dollars that
are keeping it afloat.
PirateJohn
wrote:
>
> > Just as a minor point. If the poor lady's name is Isabel Rodriguez
> > and her boyfriend is named Jose and needs an interpreter who
> > understands Spanish, I would take a wild guess and assume that she was
> > Hispanic, not black.
>
> Sure. They also probably kill their share of white, Indian and Asian
> patients, too. But they aren't the putative reason this place is
> being kept afloat. And just incidentally, it's *our* tax dollars that
> are keeping it afloat.
> --
You have to wonder about the economics of this place. And whether or
not a portion of the funding is coming from a "health care" (to use
that phrase loosely in this case) corporation or if it's all public
money.
Anyhow, I think that you and I disagree that a house cleaning is in
order.
marilyn...@gmail.com
> order.
you meant agree, right?
Bill Schenley
> medical facility," said Sheriff's Capt. Steven M. Roller,
> who is in charge of the Century Station, which handled
> the calls. "That poses some real quandaries."
Not *that* confusing, Captain Roller:
"And police officers say they have an
understanding among themselves that,
if shot, they will not be taken there."
- Quoted from the 2004 LA Times article on King-Drew -
> "You're not here to see how they're treating her," the
> bystander said.
>
> "OK, well, that's not a criminal thing. You understand
> what I'm saying?" the dispatcher said.
>
> "Excuse me, if this woman fall out and die, what [do]
> you mean there ain't a criminal thing?" the woman said.
Of course it is a "criminal thing." It's *criminal* that King-Drew/Harbor
has been allowed to stay open for the last twenty years
It is also criminal that Maxine Waters, among many others, hasn't been
jailed for corruption, extortion, bribe-taking, *voluntary* manslaughter and
wasting valuable oxygen..
> For complete coverage of the troubles at Martin Luther
> King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, go to latimes.com/kingharbor.
> The page includes the 911 audiotapes, documents, previous
> stories, a message board and The Times' 2004 series on
> problems at King/Drew.
Part I
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/msg/c508d3717af7506b?hl=en&
Part II
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/msg/3b127577bf66464f?hl=en&
Part III
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/msg/6e401e04bad8ed41?hl=en&
Part IV
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/msg/158b4010001a73f6?hl=en&
Part V
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/msg/2a5165a45f5d57b1?hl=en&
PirateJohn
Bill Schenley
> > > is Isabel Rodriguez and her boyfriend is named
> > > Jose and needs an interpreter who understands
> > > Spanish, I would take a wild guess and assume
> > > that she was Hispanic, not black.
There is an ER interpreter on staff at King-Harbor 24/7. They have no
choice; it's the law. If King-Drew/Harbor could find a way to avoid paying
an interpreter's salary - they would.
> > Sure. They also probably kill their share of white,
> > Indian and Asian patients, too. But they aren't the
> > putative reason this place is being kept afloat. And
> > just incidentally, it's *our* tax dollars that are keeping
> > it afloat.
>
> You have to wonder about the economics of this place.
> And whether or not a portion of the funding is coming
> from a "health care" (to use that phrase loosely in this
> case) corporation or if it's all public money.
The Federal tax dollars that King-Drew/Harbor has sucked out of America's
pockets is nothing more than a cash cow for Maxine Waters, a few of her
cohorts, and past/present members of the LA County Board of Supervisors.
The staff of Federal grant writers K-D/H uses is far greater than their
staff of doctors ... because their staff of grant writers is much more
valuable to them.
MGW
<marilyn...@gmail.com> scrawled:
>
> Meanwhile, police ran a computer check on Rodriguez and found that she
> had a no-bail warrant for her arrest. As she was being taken to a
> squad car to be placed in custody, she became unresponsive. She died a
> short time later in the ER.
Note that when the police did show up, they tried to place her in
custody rather than get her medical help.
--
MGW
I have yet to see a problem, however complicated, which when you looked at
it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. ~ Poul Anderson
MGW
<jo...@buccaneerpress.com> scrawled:
Well I disagree. I think a house razing is in order. No house
cleaning could fix that place.
The Kentucky Wizard
and after consultations with my Joint Chiefs of Staff, being briefed by
members of my Cabinet and many telephone conversations with various World
Leaders, I have come to the following conclusions:
> Tragic Catch-911 for dying woman
> Upset she was not being treated at King-Harbor, two callers were told
> she could not be sent to another hospital.
>
> By Charles Ornstein and Francisco Vara-Orta, Times Staff Writers
> June 13, 2007
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-calls13jun13,0,4051842,full.story?coll=la-home-center
>
>
> In the 40 minutes before a woman's death last month at Martin Luther
> King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, two separate callers pleaded with 911
> dispatchers to send help because the hospital staff was ignoring her
> as she writhed on the floor, according to audio recordings of the
> calls.
>
That place isn't a hospital, it's a hellhole. They need to close it before
they needlessly kill another person simply because no one cared, with the
exception of her family.
--
Never argue with an idiot; they'll drag you down to their level and
beat you with experience.
© The Wiz ®
«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»
b...@new.rr.com
<marilynajohn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Tragic Catch-911 for dying woman
> Upset she was not being treated at King-Harbor, two callers were told
> she could not be sent to another hospital.
>
> By Charles Ornstein and Francisco Vara-Orta, Times Staff Writers
> June 13, 2007
>
I currently work as an "International Patient Advocate" for person
afflicted with "Adhesion Related Disorder (ARD)" and though this
disorder has not been confirmed as a condition that Edith Isabel
Rodriguez had, in my opinion it very well could be. It is my
intentions to secure Mrs. Rodriguez's autopsy report which will offer
to me a more comprehensive look into her prior medical/surgical
history, which, if there is anything of a surgical nature existing in
that history, will give credence to the probability that "post
surgical peritoneal adhesions" were in fact a cause of her pain and
multiple ER visits for pain. I can say with certainty that being on
analgesics it is no wonder Edith had a bowel obstruction from
constipation, which is a side affect of such a medication, and for a
person who has a bowel compromised from adhesions, obstruction is a
medical emergency which can trigger the results typical of what Edith
Isabel Rodriguez experienced -death surrounded by ignorance and
hostility within the medical arena.
Adhesions cannot be diagnosed without a surgical procedure, they will
NOT show up on any diagnostic tests currently offered in our medical
arena - not on a CT Scan, MRI, Contrast Lower Gi series or abdominal X-
rays, however, displacement of the intestines, AND ANY obstruction of
the intestines will show 100%...but it will NOT show an obstruction,
caused by adhesions or not, if these diagnostics are not ordered on
the patient!
FACT: #1 death by intestinal obstructions results from intestinal
adhesions!
(Physicians will generaly NOT tell a patient if they indeed have
intestinal adhesions because most times the adhesions are caused BY
the Dr. as in an "iatrogenic" disease, something caused by a Dr. or by
the treatment by a Dr!
http://www.adhesionrelateddisorder.com/adhesion7.html
Tammy Wynette died under similar circumstances, and her death was
directly related to ARD. Others have as well, unfortunately. I invite,
and encourage you to please visit this web site: http://www.adhesionrelateddisorder.com
for more information on ARD.
My own mother died in a similar fashion, less harsh then dear Edith,
as she laid in her bed and died of a perforated bowel, more "hygenic"
way to die verses Ediths death, but no less at the hands of the
medical society!
I am hoping that everyone who reads this blog will taking this
unfortunate situation and loss of a young mother a step further by
acclimating yourselves to a most hideous medical condition that rivals
appendectomies, heart bypass surgery and hip replacements in our
country, and throughout the world!"
God Bless the Family and friends of Edith, thank-God Edith is with our
Lord as her suffering is over, and thiers lives on!