This ran on our web site Sunday. I hope this lady OWNS this hospital before she's finished suing!

___________________

A phone call jarred Martha Weaver from a fitful sleep at 2 a.m. and it took a few seconds for the news to filter through her early-morning haze.

The caller, who identified herself as a nurse at St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo, said that Weaver's 64-year-old husband had just died, two days after being hospitalized with heart trouble.

When Weaver and her daughter, Cmell, 35, had left Ben Weaver just a few hours earlier, his spirits were good, his condition improving. In fact, the nurses were arranging to move him out of intensive care.

Now on the short drive from their Somis home to the Camarillo hospital, Martha and Cmell (pronounced Camille) Weaver were arranging for a funeral.

Only it turned out that Ben Weaver was alive. The hospital had called Martha Weaver in error, which she discovered after learning on arrival that her husband was sound asleep in his hospital bed--snoring.

______________

The full story is in the

Los Angeles Times

Saw this on t.v. - already being blamed on an agency nurse. Their attorney said "because you know they're not as well trained! (Still fuming!!!)

Anyone read my post about "billy bob"? our CCU and MICU each admitted a patient with the same last name, unknown to us. Two different diagnosis. One with a clotted dialysis graft to MICU one with sepsis to CCU.

The Billy Bob in CCU was a DNR, dying with sepsis. The door rang and mrs. Billy bob was led in to sit with her dying husband. She was told of his continued grave condition that couldn't last long and family was called. She sat at his bedside for almost two hours holding his hand, crying at times.

Billy Bob dies and the family member arrived and exclaimed "this is not Billy Bob!!!!" (2x2 were over his eyes due to sclera edema). Come to find out the wife is legally blind!!!!!!!!!

She never questioned the fact that her husband had been admitted for a clotted dialysis graft and is now dying and all the staff is just "sitting around and letting him die". She had NO IDEA!!!!!

We quickly called admitting and found the other billy bob both first and last names the same was in MICU, alive and well.

The wife, estatic to still have her husband stated "I'm glad to have been there to hold that poor man's hand while he died, he wasn't alone"

Having been though this.... It's unfortunately easy under very unusual circumstances.... now the charts are flagged by admitting if the same last name is in house

Thank God the family and especially wife understood (we're the first door in the corridor of ICU's and the mix-up as she called to see her billy bob was an unfortunate easy one!)

Billy Bob dies and the family member arrived and exclaimed "this is not Billy Bob!!!!" (2x2 were over his eyes due to sclera edema).

Oh my GOD!

That's worse than the Southern California case. What causes these: overworked staff, jaded staff, WHAT?

The families that have had to go through being told a loved one is dead, then being told "oops, we made a mistake" is tragic. No one should have to go through that, but mistakes happen (we are all human). I hope to GOD I never make that mistake!!

I am responding to the fact that a doctor had the nerve to say that an agency nurse made that error because he/she is not as well trained (I'm assuming as compared to that hospital's regular staff). This doesn't say much for the regular staff at that hospital. I bet if we took any uneducated, bad or well trained individual in any field they would agree that this should not happen. AND, they probly could give a plan of action to ensure this wouldn't happen.

I find that the doctors are living in a f*$%#@! dream world. As a traveler, I was once involved in a conversation with a group of staff nurses and a doctor. The doctor (prob. in his late 30'-40's), had the nerve to say that "nurses that traveldo so because they just leave a string of bodies." I, of course, had to open my mouth (as the staff nurse's mouths fell open) and tell him why I chose to leave the "ownership" of hospitals, and be the owner of me.

I may not like the direction that healthcare is going. As it spirals out of control, I as least can be in control of me. As an agency nurse I get to hear the "rules of the game" first, then decide if I "want to play". If I get screwed, I can go somewhere else tomorrow (there is always a somewhere else).

Ah, yes, but who told the 'agency' nurse to make that phone call!!

:chair:

as for Billy Bob

Even in jail we note the chart with "name alert" when inmates have the same last name.

JailRN,

I'm not quite sure of the context of your statement ("Ah, yes, but who told the 'agency' nurse to make that phone call!!"). As an agency nurse, the pt's that are assigned to me are my patients for that shift. All duties that a hospital employed RN can do, I can do (and am expected to do). If I have a question about that individual hospital's P&P, then I attempt to ask the charge nurse or a staff nurse. Often times, they don't even know their own hospital's P&P. Thus, it's a guessing game, but I have never been wrong by following Lippencott (it's important for an agency nurse to be aware of national standards of care).

I have never called a family to imform them that a loved one has died. That is a physician's responsibilty, I may not be able to answer all of their questions; especially if this was the first shift that I had the pt. That is not to say that I have never done it, but the attempt should be made by the Dr. I just responded to their return phone call after the Dr. left a message.

I hope I didn't misunderstand the context in which you wrote your response. I just want to make it clear that no one has to tell me (those choice of words gets me fired up) to do or don't do something. I am a competent, critically thinking RN regardless of whether I am working for the hospital or an agency.