Bleeding on the emergency room floor of a hospital after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, a Latino family loses a loved one.
Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital in Watts.
Relatives said Rodriguez, who had a criminal parole violation, was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area.
Her death was ruled accidental. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.
Given all the claims of imcompetence over the years, I doubt Dr. King would be please to have this hospital in it's current state named after him .
“I’m in the emergency room. My wife is dying and the nurses don’t want to help her out,” Rodriguez’s boyfriend, Jose Prado, is heard saying in Spanish through an interpreter.
“What’s wrong with her?” a female dispatcher asked. “She’s vomiting blood,” Prado said.
A second 911 call was placed eight minutes later by a female bystander requesting care.
During the call, the dispatcher argued with the woman over whether there really was an emergency.
“May God strike you too for acting the way you just acted,” the woman said finally. “No, negative ma’am, you’re the one,” he said.
The incident was the latest high-profile lapse at King-Harbor, formerly known as King/Drew. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is investigating claims of recent patient care breakdowns, including Rodriguez’s case.
Federal inspectors last week said emergency room patients were in “immediate jeopardy” of harm or death, and King-Harbor was given 23 days to shape up or risk losing federal funding.
MSNBC
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