Report: Ohio Nurse Didn't Realize She Flushed Living Donor's Kidney

[News]

It prompted the suspension of the hospital's living-donor kidney transplant program.

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[Richard B the EMT]

We can only hope the intended kidney recipient didn't follow the kidney "down the hopper".

[Just Plain Ruff]

My God, how do you recover from something like this.

What incompetence.

First off the living donor's kidney, is gone, which was the patients brothers which was in effect, WASTED.

Do you think they billed the insurance companies for the surgery?

You can bet that the nurse who flushed the kidney is the one who got fired.

Every last one of them involved in this abortion of a disaster should have been fired.

What a bunch of boobs.

If I was the patient, I'd be suing them because in essence, they may have signed my death warrant because depending on how bad off I was the kidney transplant may have been my last hope.

Let's just hope that this family is a forgiving type.

But do you really want to go to this hospital for medical care?

Jeesh.

Hopefully the patient made it out alive.

Edited September 26, 2012 by Captain ToHellWithItAll

[DFIB]

Let's just hope that this family is a forgiving type.

I hope they are not. The operating is a serious place for serious people that does not suffer fools or foolishness. I have worked transplants before and we never, never, never trash anything until we know where the tissue is, much less bagged chilled solutions,. In fact we check bagged solutions just to see if any instruments might have been dropped in the bottom.

This is the kind of iatrogeny is not to be winked at.

[Just Plain Ruff]

What I meant is that I hope they are a forgiving type and forgive the incompetence but make them pay out the nose and force them to evaluate why they FUCKED up in the first place.

Forgive the fools but fix the freaking issues.

I'm not saying to forgive the screw up, I'm saying to forgive the person making the mistake which is what my nature would do but you can bet your bottom dollar that there would be heads rolling, dollars filling up my bank account and my brothers because it was his kidney(a viable kidney to boot that they took out of him and flushed, one that he didn't need to give to me but did in order to help save my life, but he can't give me another).

What the hell do you tell this family? "oops, we're sorry, we threw your organ that was supposed to go in your body away, in fact, we flushed it down the toilet. WE can't even go dumpster diving for it and clean it up and put it in. It's probably in ole Jake the sewer alligator's gut right now.

But for your pain and suffering, we still will bill your insurance company and anything they don't cover, remember to send us a check for the remainder of the amount as we did hold up our end of the bargain by providing you at least a partial service.

This is why some in healthcare can give all of healthcare a black eye.

From the top on down, all should be held accountable and heads should roll. There are over 970 people who are now trying to find a new transplant center all because of incompetence at the bottom.

As Bugs bunny would say What a bunch of boobs.

[BillKaneEMT]

This is atrocious. I keep trying to think of a set of circumstances in which this could be an understandable error and I'm coming up short. I can't imagine how the patient and their family must be feeling right now.

[Just Plain Ruff]

I had a lawyer one time tell me this.

"To forgive is human, to sue is divine!!!!!" and he believed it.

[DwayneEMTP]

Yeah, man. One nurse was fired and another resigned over this I guess...

What a horrible situation. I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like to be the person that had to approach a family, waiting for news of successful surgery on two of their kids, and have to explain this...

And though it sounds as if there were plenty of issues to go around...to be the nurse that put the kidney in the trash? Horrific...She's going to be crucified...worse I think, as at least crucifiction has a finite period of suffering and humiliation.

The only thing that I feel good about in this story? That though we may have a bit of fun with the occasional sensational story of someone getting bit on the head, no one here is making fun of the amazing amount of human suffering represented in this story, despite the obvious and easy material....That's cool...

[eb1040]

Medical errors happen. Sometimes it takes a major muck up like this to get everyone checking their own policies.

This hospital will settle and settle big with the family. That is a given. If the nurse does not have insurance, he or she will also probably stand to lose alot and will probably have to defend his or her license as well which will cost several thousand dollars. The RN will probably never work again although this was likely the result of poor policies (system error) in place rather than just incompetency on the nurse's part. The check, double check for meds and time outs before any cutting came out of some pretty bad errors.

The hospital will be hurt in a big way by having their accreditation scrutinized. This makes them fair game to have CMS in their face for the next few years with the risk of losing major reimbursement for other patients.

Employees not directly associated with this incident will probably lose their jobs.

But, while this is a major error for the hospital, maybe it is time to examine some of your own policies. EMS has had headlines with lax oversight of RSI protocols, bad intubations and inadequate monitoring which has resulted in deaths. Medication errors due to bad placement in the med box, similar labeling or just a lack of understanding of the dosages have resulted in deaths. The unique thing about EMS is that some serious errors don't result in major changes in education or policies. Usually a reprimand is issued and it is back to business as usual. There isn't alot of oversight with many government and private agencies which will sit on your shoulder for the next several years to see your program is ran properly. This hospital will probably be one of the best places to get a transplant if it survives this.

[Just Plain Ruff]

EB what a great post.

You know KU MEdical Center had a similar issue about 10 years ago with their heart transplant program. NOt sure of the circumstances around it but it was pretty bad causing it to stop transplants for a couple of year. Now it's one of the top places to get a transplant.

So I am fully in agreement with the lack of oversight in EMS. Just how many of us know someone in EMS or have ourselves have given a medication error or even given a fatal medication error(not anyone on this board RIGHT?????? perish the thought) but we know or have heard of someone. The lack of oversght is profound.

Medical billing fraud, medication errors, going against protocols with no justification, cowboy medicine, patient assault, patient sexual assault, many other issues that come up in the news. The list is exhaustive.

How do we deal with this? I'll bet that this hospital will have some lessons to share if only we in EMS would deign to listen.