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I would be very interested to hear everybody's thoughts on this situation that occurred in the UK.
Woman Dies After Being Sent Home From Hospital Twice
Published May 10, 2011
| The Sun
A woman who died 10 minutes after arriving home from hospital for the second time in a one day was not even seen by a doctor, a coronial inquest has found.
June Owen, 63, died after visiting Stawell Hospital in the United Kingdom.
Janice Campbell said it was shocking a doctor had not seen her mother, who was in pain and suffering breathing difficulties.
Coronial findings made by magistrate Richard Pithouse last week had left her family "confused."
"It still leaves many questions unanswered, and it contains no recommendations on changes that need to be made to prevent this happening again," Campbell said.
On the day of her death, Owen contacted Rural Ambulance Victoria four times, and was twice taken to Stawell Hospital.
She first visited the hospital at 5 p.m. January 21, 2008 with abdominal pain, and a nurse gave her two codeine pills and sent her home.
At 10.15 p.m., Owen arrived by ambulance again and a nurse phoned on-call doctor Briandha Jeremiah, who decided not to attend to examine her.
Jeremiah told the nurse to give her a Demerol injection, to relieve her pain, but the inquest heard conflicting reports on how long Owen should be monitored afterwards.
Owen was released from hospital 40 minutes after her injection.
An autopsy found Mrs Owen, who suffered heart and lung disease, had died from an enlarged heart.
Stawell Regional Health acting chief executive Claire Letts said after Mrs Owen's death, triage, assessment and pain management policies at the hospital had been reviewed, and minor changes had been made.
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I looked at the story link, but I think you have the whole thing on your blog.
ReplyDeleteI see an unfortunate chain of events, although she had a Hx of heart and lung disease with an enlarged heart.
Why did I find it amusing to see Fox News and health in the same sentence?
What a terrible story.
ReplyDeletewhat can you do about a enlarge heart anyway? and lund disease is that curable anyway?
ReplyDeletePerhaps she was in congestive heart failure with pulmonary edema, a really common presentation at an ER. Some lasix may have helped, who knows? I thought it was interesting that the nurses are able to give narcotics without the doctor seeing the patient, not a nurse practitioner, a nurse. Quite different than the protocols here.
ReplyDeleteThe story is actually from Australia, rather than the UK. As a British nurse currently practising in Australia I was very surprised that telephone orders for S8 drugs were acceptable.
ReplyDelete