Mom suing nurse after suffocation accident

[MunoRN]

This Mother Is Suing a Hospital for Millions After She Accidentally Killed Her Son

A mother in Oregon is suing Portland Adventist Medical Center for $8.6 million after she accidentally smothered her four-day-old baby in a hospital bed.

Monica Thompson says that, a few days after her son Jacob was born in August 2012, the hospital put her newborn in bed with her so she could breastfeed him. But Thompson says in the lawsuit that the baby was put there in the middle of the night, while she was heavily medicated. Thompson drifted off, and when she woke up, Jacob was unresponsive...

Thompson, who is suing both the hospital and the individual nurse involved in the incident, said she was still drowsy and groggy” from her medication when she realized her son was not moving, her lawsuit states. The suit says Thompson called for a nurse, and when none came, she carried her son to the hallway and frantically yelled for help.”

[LovingLife123]

I think this comes down to hospitals not having nurseries anymore and not allowing the mom to properly recover. We put the baby in the room at all times.

Back when I had my children, at night the baby went to the nursery and they fed them, unless I asked for them to stay with me. I was given ambien and pain meds and was told by the nurses, Oh honey, you need your rest. You will not be getting any sleep once you get home. Let us take the baby. And I did. Recovering from a csection is hard.

Now, you don't get any choice. Moms are told the baby is with you at all times, you feed it and do all the care. Never mind they may have just been through 36 hours of a hard labor and are completely exhausted. They may not be mentally all there to care for that baby right then. I feel that we should let mom's recover. Hospital stays are much shorter now and they can be sleep deprived soon enough.

[LovingLife123]

Is it normal to still need atc opiates 3 days post op from a C section?

Yes, it is. It's a major abdominal surgery. How do people not know this? This isn't a laporoscopy, your abdomen is cut through and opened. And many women who give birth lady partslly have terrible tearing.

98% of the time I think lawsuits are bogus and I trust that the medical staff did all they could. And while I don't necessarily think the nurse was negligent, the way this system is nowdays in labor and delivery, it's set up for a tragedy like this to happen. I don't think this is a bogus lawsuit. This was a horrible tragedy. A mom waits almost 10 months to meet and hold her child. Then, this happens. Who is responsible for that? We should be allowing women time to recover from giving birth.

[klone, MSN, RN]

It might not have. Maybe she filed some time ago and we're just now hearing about it. Seems the statutes of limitations to file would have been only 1 - 3 years in US. Don't know for sure.

I feel so badly for all involved.

Statute of limitations on anything related to childbirth is either 18 or 20 years. The article stated that she didn't file suit until a few weeks ago, after "someone" (presumably an attorney) looked over all the documentation.

Most likely what will happen is the hospital will settle. I would be very surprised if the case ever saw a courtroom.

[klone, MSN, RN]

I think this comes down to hospitals not having nurseries anymore and not allowing the mom to properly recover. We put the baby in the room at all times.

Except that that was not at all the case in this situation. The hospital had the baby in the nursery while the mom slept. Sounds like the baby was in the nursery for nearly four hours. The nurse brought the baby out to mom to breastfeed. If a woman is breastfeeding, that's what you have to do.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

It might not have. Maybe she filed some time ago and we're just now hearing about it. Seems the statutes of limitations to file would have been only 1 - 3 years in US. Don't know for sure.

I feel so badly for all involved.

No the lawsuit was filed just last week. It says so in the news article and in the actual linked case itself.

[HvnSntRN]

When I worked in Mother-Baby Care, we were not permitted to leave a drowsy mother alone with her newborn in the bed with her. If we set her up to breastfeed, we had to go in and check on them after 30 minutes. We didn't allow them to co-bed, but the baby was in a cot near the bed. We had pot lights installed above each bed so the mother could see her baby's complexion and become more easily oriented to her surroundings if she woke up (or was woken up) during the night.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

Yes, it is. It's a major abdominal surgery. How do people not know this? This isn't a laporoscopy, your abdomen is cut through and opened. And many women who give birth lady partslly have terrible tearing.

98% of the time I think lawsuits are bogus and I trust that the medical staff did all they could. And while I don't necessarily think the nurse was negligent, the way this system is nowdays in labor and delivery, it's set up for a tragedy like this to happen. I don't think this is a bogus lawsuit. This was a horrible tragedy. A mom waits almost 10 months to meet and hold her child. Then, this happens. Who is responsible for that? We should be allowing women time to recover from giving birth.

I don't have kids and I have never worked post partum, so I genuinely don't know and was just asking. My friends who have had C sections were home by the third night. Our open tah-bso patients usually go home two days post op, often mostly using Tylenol and NSAIDs, so that's the comparison I was working with.

[HvnSntRN]

So sad, and so scary. During falls risk teaching in the NICU, I've had moms confess that with their earlier (non-NICU) babies that while on postpartum they had fallen asleep with baby in the bed or chair, dropped them on the floor, and never told anybody.

Unfortunately, in NICU I find that many parents get pretty ticked off if you tell them not to fall asleep holding baby, since there is too much risk that they'll a) fall and hit their head, or b) roll into a crevice and suffocate. Some parents get really argumentative when you actually enforce this policy, with the mindset of "I'm the parent, don't tell me when I'm allowed or not allowed to to hold my baby," or "You think you know better than I do whether I'm capable of holding right now?" It really puts the nurse between a rock and a hard place, since we have to balance safety with satisfaction scores.

That's when you chart like hell on that patient.

[macawake, MSN]

If a surgeon cuts off the wrong leg and then must also remove the good one, when nurses or other staff are negligent, what happens to their victims in your country? How will the now bilateral amputee get the care and equipment he needs? Do you folks not acknowledge pain and suffering or diminished quality of life? Not criticizing, just asking. Thanks.

Thankfully mistakes as serious as amputating the wrong limb are extremely rare. I found one case in the past ten years (countrywide) and I looked in the database with all reported healthcare related incidents and the conclusions of the investigations. It wasn't really a case of amputating the wrong limb, but rather that of a misdiagnosis/delayed diagnosis that allowed the underlying disease process progress until amputation was the only available option. (The hospital would of course file a complaint against itself when something like this happens and the patient can also report). I'm not claiming that mistakes don't happen, because they definitely do but most don't have catastrophic consequences.

I don't know how much you know about the Scandinavian countries? We have an extensive social safety net in place. First of all, we have universal healthcare so your hypothetical double amputee would get the medical care he needs (medications, prosthetics, physiotherapy, psychological counselling, the necessary remodelling and equipment to make his home suitable for his condition and whatever else he might need). Transportation if he needs it (special taxi service for people who need it due to disease or physical disabilities). If he could no longer work at his previous job he would get retraining/a degree free of charge and of course also receive pay during the time he went to school. If he could only work for example 4 hours per day, he'd get paid for that from his employer and the remaining 4 hours would be sick pay (until reitirement age). If he for some reason was no longer able to work at all, he'd get sick pay until retirement age (65) or something called early retirement pay and then at 65 regular retirement pay.

All people who are employed also have insurance through their employer or union which will also pay you a lump sum if you are injured and/or lose parts of your bodily "functions".

Of course we acknowledge suffering and realize the importance of quality of life, but from my own experience (I've spent a couple of years in the U.S. and lived in about a dozen countries in my life) our societies are different in many aspects. We have a different attitude in some ways. We're not as "punitive-minded" and are basically focused on making the best of a crappy situation (which becoming a double amputee due to a medical error would certainly qualify as) for the individual who was the victim of the mistake. The focus of the hospital/facility where the mistake happened is to learn from the incident and actively work to prevent the same thing from happening again.

Hope that answers your questions :)

[Jolie, BSN]

When I worked in Mother-Baby Care, we were not permitted to leave a drowsy mother alone with her newborn in the bed with her. If we set her up to breastfeed, we had to go in and check on them after 30 minutes. We didn't allow them to co-bed, but the baby was in a cot near the bed. We had pot lights installed above each bed so the mother could see her baby's complexion and become more easily oriented to her surroundings if she woke up (or was woken up) during the night.

These are interesting precautions, but what would they have prevented in this situation?

Checking on a baby every 30 minutes is about 25 minutes too long to prevent a suffocation.

The mother in this case wasn't "co-sleeping" with her baby, she was sitting up to feed, and if she was exhausted to the point of falling asleep and smothering the child, I doubt that extra lighting would have mattered much.

I agree this is a tragedy and my prayers are with all those suffering.

[TriciaJ, RN]

Do you have sources to support this statement? The statistics I've seen in the past, over the years, have indicated that malpractice suits represent only a tiny proportion of the healthcare spending in the US, and that states that have initiated "tort reform" and set limits on individuals' ability to sue have not experienced significant reductions in healthcare costs.

I don't know what the recent stats indicate. They do indicate that the US spends significantly more on healthcare than other industrialized countries. Or is that now incorrect, too? Do the stats factor in the cost of liability premiums or the cost of defensive medicine (that is now also a myth). I'm not sure how all these things can be measured. A previous poster asked about monitoring breastfeeding moms with cameras or Q15 minute checks. Those measures will cost money. How many other little things do we now routinely do out of fear of a lawsuit? Is there a reliable way to quantify the cost?

[TriciaJ, RN]

Research shows that the top 3 reasons people file a medical malpractice lawsuit is to get the truth, to prevent this from happening to someone else, and to get someone to say I'm sorry and/or acknowledge their injury.

Money does make it on the list of reasons people sue, but only for actual losses and to pay future care costs.

Yes. Lawyers do take 40% of the settlement. This sounds awful until you realize that the lawyer makes nothing unless he wins the case. The lawyer pays all the costs associated with the lawsuit. S/he doesn't recover any costs if s/he loses. An expert witness might charge the lawyer $1,000/hour for reviewing the medical records, meeting with the lawyer, giving depositions, testifying in court. The lawyer is paying clerical staff, overhead, filing fees, etc. It might take 3-5 years before the lawyer gets paid a cent.

Finally 82% of medical malpractice suits get $0. In 82% of the cases the lawyer spends lots of time and money and makes nothing.

In the other 18%, the average settlement is $425,000.

The advantage to this approach is that a lawyer won't take on a case unless they think they have a good chance of winning. If an individual had to pay the lawyer, the expert witnesses, etc. up front, only the wealthy would be able to sue. If someone has been harmed by another's negligence they should be able to get their case heard in court.

82% of cases get $0? Did they not hold up to scrutiny in a court of law? They still cost something to defend. That cost also gets factored into the cost of health care, not just the 18% deemed to have merit.