Woman Becomes Quadruple Amputee After Giving Birth
POSTED: 5:59 pm EST January 19, 2006
UPDATED: 4:06 pm EST January 20, 2006
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee.
The woman filed a complaint against Orlando Regional Healthcare Systems, she said, because they won't tell her exactly what happened. The hospital maintains the woman wants to know information that would violate other patients' rights.
Claudia Mejia gave birth eight and a half months ago at Orlando Regional South Seminole. She was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando where her arms and legs were amputated. She was told she had streptococcus, a flesh eating bacteria, and toxic shock syndrome, but no further explanation was given.
The hospital, in a letter, wrote that if she wanted to find out exactly what happened, she would have to sue them.
"I want to know what happened. I went to deliver my baby and I came out like this," Mejia said.
Mejia said after she gave birth to Mathew last spring, she was kept in the hospital with complications. Twelve days after giving birth at Orlando Regional South Seminole hospital, she was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center where she became a quadruple amputee. Now she can not care for or hold her baby.
Sorry but being thankful one is alive but without their hands is a life altering event. And her inability to touch, hold or feed her child is also a life altering event. And she has every right to question what happen to her.
The second is an implication that is an attempt to deminish the patient, a favorite attorney trick.
It took more then 12 days for her to arrive in the OR. She was asking for generalized information regarding her situation, hardly a violation of anyone elses privacy.
Grannynurse:balloons:
:yeahthat: This woman has every right to demand answers, all this business about how she should just be glad to be alive and quit asking questions is quite callous IMO.
It actually is the action of physically rubbing your hands with soap and water and rinsing under running water that removes bacteria/virii/foreign matter from your hands. Antibacterial soaps may have a residual antibacterial effect, but it is far from the best way to really kill anything. A normal hand wash is supposed to take >15sec of lathering. If your objective is to kill bacteria on you hands, an alcohol based handrub is the way to go. There is NO mechanism for resistance to alcohol, it dissolves cell walls in bugs. The number one mantra of infection control is still true: wash your hands
Yes, I learned that also in Microbiology, about washing for at least 15 seconds and rubbing.
But should a nurse be washing her hands after Every single contact with any pt. Sometimes it's difficult to 'see' if a pt. has a bacterial infection until they get symptoms.
I've volunteered at hospitals and I didn't see all nurses wash their hands after contact with every pt. I know most do, but I know some don't do it correctly or not all the time.
*sigh* Those of you that think my comments are callous and/or don't understand how quickly decisions need to be made in a situation like this OBVIOUSLY have spent no time in an Intensive Care Unit.
PLEASE research DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation) and educate yourself in this horrible, yet very common, complication.
Yes, this woman lost her limbs. It's tragic and sad. I agree with everyone.
Would she have been better off dead???
Her brain functions: she will be able to see her child grow up, graduate, get married, have grandbabies....... she would miss that if the medical team had not done everything in their power to keep her alive.
Like I said before... the MEDIA doesn't know squat.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
I agree with Vizla'smom ; we need to take into consideration, the media can spin this anyway the wind blows. Few of us really have all the facts----- if any of us even do. We just were not there.
This is simply a horrible, horrible thing to have happen to this poor woman and her family. And, whether anyone else in the hospital had a similar infection or not, she deserves answers to her questions. Nothing will ever bring her limbs back, but she should at least know what she wants to know in order to give her some peace of mind.
From the stories, it doesn't sound to me like she is just looking for someone to blame - the hospital refused to answer her questions, forcing her to sue in order to get them.
Hospitals need to work out these HIPPA regulations and not make patients sue to get their rights to know.
Simple hand washing before and after contact, with a patient, is known to prevent noscomical infections.
Grannynurse:balloons:
Yes, if only it were a perfect world, and every staff member actually washed their hands between patients. I'm sure we all know that is not nearly the case, unfortunately. Even with the alcohol based handrub available all over the place, if you don't use it............
Necrotizing fasciitis can be an idiopathic and/or idosyncratic etiology as well. She may never know why.
well, for her sake, i hope she finds out so she can put some closure on it-whatever it takes. eventually she'll be able to get prosthetics and function more independently. but had it happened to me, i'd be frantically searching for answers, leaving no stone unturned.
Necrotizing fasciitis can be an idiopathic and/or idosyncratic etiology as well. She may never know why.
Good point.
And we truly don't have all the answers here.
I do have to say something - my first thought when I saw the video was when she said she couldn't hold her child - I looked at her arms and thought, well, yes she can. She doesn't have hands but she can hold her child in what is left of her arms.
Not saying anything as rude as she should be grateful . . . I was just thinking that she actually could hold her child.
I've worked with many disabled folks - they manage to touch and hold their loved ones in spite of disabilities.
I know of one man with MS who has had continuous open decubitus sores with tunneling all over his body and he has lived that way for ten years.
What makes some folks succumb and others not?
Medicine is such a great science . .. .so many conundrums.
Yes, it would be nice if it were a perfect world and every staff member washed their hands. And didn't get their bowels in an uproar when someone else draws there attention to it. Then perhaps patients could focus on getting better rather then surveying their care givers. Why is it almost everyones position that the surgery was necessary and unavoidable. After all, the same information that is lacking about the woman;s case is also lacking about the hospital's possible culpability.
Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.
I do have to say something - my first thought when I saw the video was when she said she couldn't hold her child - I looked at her arms and thought, well, yes she can. She doesn't have hands but she can hold her child in what is left of her arms.
Not saying anything as rude as she should be grateful . . . I was just thinking that she actually could hold her child.
steph
Good point of observation, steph.
And, I want to use this very observation to bring out another point. I hope you do not mind my doing this.
Let's just say for the sake of argument a lawsuit is initiated.
During the demonstrative evidence of the trial, the defense attorney/s will bring out that very point. They will offer evidence and/or rebuttal witnesses outlining the fact this woman can indeed hold her child. They will try and minimize the injuries in actuality.
SharonH, RN
2,144 Posts
:yeahthat: This woman has every right to demand answers, all this business about how she should just be glad to be alive and quit asking questions is quite callous IMO.