Should I seek an attorney because of what my momma suffered and we witnessed?
My momma had lung cancer and was admitted to the ICU for breathing issues. Upon transfer from ER to ICU the RN picked up tubing from the floor and connected it to my mom's breathing mask (bypap) which blew air into her mouth and lungs. My mom was talking to us and appeared to be getting better. After a day in ICU the Physician told us we would lose our momma in a matter of hours, and to call immediate family in now. We were all (roughly 20 family members) assured that my mom would not suffer. Medicine would be given to her upon removal of the bypap and she would pass peacefully. Within seconds of removing the mask, my momma began struggling to breath. The nurse was found by my brother and was asked to bring my mom some medicine because she was suffering. While waiting on the medication, She sat up in bed and pulled on me and my daddy to help her. She attempted to get out of bed, she turned purple, black and veins pop out all over her face. She struggled like this about 5 minutes before she collapsed into the bed still struggling but getting tired. A few more minutes passed before the nurse arrived and administered the medication. About 10 min passed and we lost my precious momma. My family witnessed a horrible horrible gut wrenching, heart breaking, nightmare making senseless death because the medical team failed my momma. Should I contact an attorney? We want the individuals punished for putting that dirty hose on her bypap mask and for causing her to suffer this awful death. We don’t want money, but we do want them to know that they let my momma down and potentially introduced life threatening bacteria into her lungs from that dirty hose. I have filed a complaint with the hospital and am awaiting their decision on the action they are going to do if any, but I cannot help but feel like an attorney may be needed.
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Your goal is Nobel and important. My first job was as an NA in a hospital. I can't tell you how many times I saw staff take items from my tray or bathroom counter, put them on the floor so the tray could be used for medical purposes...like hold tray and vials for blood draws, or dressing change...then the dirty items were placed back on the tray or counter. In the case of hospital equipment put on the tray, any contamination is now carried to other patients rooms. Doctors & hospitals are sending people home who still need high level care to avoid hospital infections! Even of your LO had minutes to live, a staff practicing best practices would, out of habit, never use a dirty hose from the floor. I have seen the same happen when an O2 tube & nasal canter fell on the floor. I often cleaned it myself!
Your mother should have been premeditated and more given the moment she was disconnected. RN should have been in or just outside the door! For one to record actual TOD.
IMHO any settlement should include a plan for outside monitoring of the improved practices. The DR & RN who should have been there to insure proper removal of respitrator, should have a mark on their state licence file so they don't just quit and do this somewhere else. If you agree, let the attorney know these ate your goals.
My late father, a defence attorney who often represented hospitals, had the credentials to insist on meeting top hospital staff when incidents of negligence happened in our family, and things changed before he left the room. Two examples: They wanted to send me home saying high fever was just post-op fever. They took out my tonsils when I had strep! The lab reports got mixed up but the Surgeon should have seen I had infection. 2) Doing a DNC on my Mom without having her rare A- blood on hand. Ignoring her explaining her having a rare blood condition, one they never heard of...well it was very very rare & very real. She almost bled out before they could lifeflight her to a major University hospital. They started the surgery before my father arrived over her objections.
If no one comes in with a big stick, nothing changes! Honor your mother by doing your best to change things.
Option 2 - Find an organization and go on speaking tours giving CEUs to hospital staff. Get your word out!
God bless you and your family. Please do seek counseling for the trauma you all have endured...send copies of the counseling bills to the CEO & head of Loss Control of the hospital.
Good Luck & keep us informed.
A dirty bipap hose did not cause your Mom to suffer an “awful death”; the Lung Cancer and the failure to follow the hospital’s Policies and Procedures for removing a bipap machine from a patient most likely precipitated your Mom’s “awful death”.
The main concerns are whether the nursing staff, respiratory therapists and doctors followed the hospital's “Policies and Procedures for Removing Bipap Machine from a Patient with an Irreversible Lung Disease or Other Terminal Medical Condition (Lung Cancer)”, and secondly, whether the nurse followed the hospital’s "Infection Control Guidelines for Bipap Machines" when the bipap tubing (and mask?) was found on the floor and not cleaned with a disinfectant solution prior to it being placed on the patient. New mask and tubing are not usually put on the bipap machine every time the mask or tubing touches the floor.
Since you have filed a complaint with the hospital, I would wait and see what their response is.
If you want the nurses or the hospital to have their licenses put on "Probation", then you can file a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services Licensure Division and they will investigate whether the hospital staff followed the hospital’s “Policies and Procedures for Removing Bipap Machine from a Patient” and the hospital’s “Infection Control Guidelines for Bipap Machines” and determine the best corrective measure to be taken in this situation.
Lorrie67 - hiring (& upfront payment to)an attorney to do just what?
Realize that if you do this, it involves suing a hospital system that has a law firm on retainer to deal with stuff like this against them & their staff. As part of their due diligence, your moms medical history for decades will be used & in detail to establish why she died when she did. As she died w/lung cancer, her smoking history will be brought out. If she continued smoking after 1998 (year of the MSA - Master Settlement Agreement with big Tobacco and state AGs), she will come across as foolhardy as there were programs available for smoking cessation and for recovery / repair of respiratory system that could be sought out by consumers. & whomever shared her household &/or became her caregiver(s) will have depositions (on their health history) as to their and other family members use of cigarettes and vaping, and all done to establish that it could be argued that you all contributed to her death.
20 family members getting letters in the mail to provide in detail contact with the deceased & info on the their & their household cigarette & vaping use or even years of medical records or having to take time to do depositions.... well some of these 20 will not be happy having to do this. Whomever contacted attorney for lawsuit should expect blowback from family on dragging them into this. Yeah it will get ugly.
If 20 were in & out her hospital room (horrors!), staff would have said that needed to be limited to just a couple in the room. Signage is posted on floors on this routinely at hospitals. It’s gonna be in floor notes that visitors exceeded # & you were told to limit family & likely told more than once...... Your not gonna like this but it just might be implied that you all in the room in droves going in & out were sucking O2 out of the room. Yes that’s harsh but it will be something for hospital atty to bring up & X 20. It will get quite ugly.
Also average life expectancy in US is 78.8 years.
To get $ from lawsuit - in general - the deceased has to be years way way under their life expectancy. There are tables for deductions to this based on disease codes. If she lived beyond her anticipated expectancy (due to lung cancer), she will be viewed as fortunate no matter how she died in the hospital. Btw Canada is like 82.30 years & UK 80.96....
This is going to sound harsh but the cause of your mom’s death was lung cancer not removal of a mask & decreased O2 and not some last minute super bug entering her body from the floor or as you posted “potentially introduced life threatening bacteria into her lungs from that dirty hose”. You are having difficulty accepting death & it would probably be beneficial for you to seek grief counseling. If she was on MediCARE hospice, bereavement/ grief counseling is an after death benefit for the DPOA or the primary caregiver. Please please look into counseling for yourself & your family.
The worst thing here is that breathing support was removed from your loved one without personnel there to administer the medications needed to keep her comfortable, and you witnessed what is unusual today, a death that is understood to be going to take place, but one that goes gruesomely bad. Her suffering at the end terrified her. Your own pain and suffering is acute as these visions will stay in your head for a lifetime.
Hospitals are accredited by JCAHO, the Joint Commission on Accreditation. They would not like the story of the dirty equipment, tho an emergent situation where a nurse needs to administer oxygen through a tube without waiting for a replacement tube that could take an hour to get from the supplies, would allow that there are priorities in an emergency. There are, in hospitals, protocols for reporting incidents. You should report this incident as clearly as you are able and in writing, and you need to follow it up. I would see to it that JCAHO has a copy. I was a nurse for more than 40 years. I will not say I never saw something akin to the tube grabbed off the floor in an emergency, but I WILL say that I have seldom seem a death (expected) to be this gruesome, terrifying to the patient, and traumatizing to the family. I am more sorry than I can ever begin to tell you for what you witnessed, for what your loved one went through at the very end. Your description itself is enough to traumatize any caring person. I am so sorry.
One of the leading causes of death is from mistakes and accidents by doctors. That is well documented. I think they should be held accountable whenever possible to encourage higher standards.
I would hate to see your family suffer even more from what that process might involve. I would think speaking to an attorney might be a logical next step if the hospital didn’t respond appropriately. I hope they will respect your loss and help you find peace. Again I’m so sorry you have lost your mom.
Secondly, your “passed quickly” felt like an eternity as we watched my momma pull on us for help, grab her throat, attempt to get out of bed, after we put her legs back on the bed, watched her turn purple, black, veins pop out all over face, watch her attempt to speak to us and then falling into bed gasping for whatever air she could manage to grab.
Money is not what we want. All we want is for the individuals responsible for her horrible death to not do this to another family. Yes, we know my mom had little time left, but an hour before her death, she was sitting up, talking and laughing with the bipap on, discussing the things we were going to do when she got discharged. A few hours before that, the Dr came in and told her they would begin weaning her from the bipap and get her back home by the next day. So when he came back and told us we would loose her that day we couldn’t believe our ears. No respiratory therapist came, an RN removed the mask. No meds were given. About 20 family members were around her an hour before the mask was removed.