Hospitals // Current TV

"Transparency" is Selective

"Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration... more

Progresshiv
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2 years ago
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Hospital worker may have exposed patients to hepatitis

A former hospital employee may have exposed hundreds, or even thousands, of surgical patients to hepatitis C after taking their fentanyl injections and replacing them with used syringes filled with saline solution, authorities say. Kristen Diane Parker, who worked at Rose Medical Center in Denver, has admitted to secretly injecting herself in a bathroom and using unclean syringes as replacements for patients, investigators say.

She had hepatitis C, which she believes she contracted through using heroin and sharing dirty needles while she lived in New Jersey in 2008, authorities say.

She was a surgical technician at Rose from October 2008 to April 2009.

Nine patients who had surgery there during that time have tested positive for hepatitis C. Investigators are looking into whether they contracted the virus from Parker.

According to an affidavit filed by an investigator with the Food and Drug Administration, Rose Medical Center knew Parker tested positive for hepatitis C. She was counseled on how to limit her exposure to patients.

Parker quit after she was found in an operating room where she was not allowed to be. She subsequently tested positive for fentanyl. Hospital officials then contacted the DEA. Parker is in federal custody facing three drug-related charges. If she is found to have done serious harm to a patient, she could face up to 20 years in prison. If a patient dies due to her actions, she could face life in prison.

In a statement to police, Parker said, "I can't take back what I did, but I will have to live with it for the rest of my life, and so does everyone else."

Her attorney could not be reached Friday.

Rose Medical Center is contacting 4,700 patients who had surgery at Rose during the time Parker was employed there. However, hospital officials do not believe that that many patients were exposed.

"We are taking a very conservative and cautious approach by contacting everyone who had surgery during this broad time period," a statement on the hospital's Web site states. "It is likely that most of the patients who receive letters will not have been exposed to hepatitis C."

Another 1,200 patients may have been infected between May 4, 2009, and July 1, 2009, when Parker worked at Audubon Ambulatory Surgical Center in Colorado Springs. Audubon is also contacting patients.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hepatitis C is a contagious liver disease that can lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer.A former hospital employee may have exposed hundreds, or even thousands, of surgical... more

singrrr
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More mistakes uncovered at V.A. Hospitals.

For patients with prostate cancer, it is a common surgical procedure: a doctor implants dozens of radioactive seeds to attack the disease. But when Dr. Gary D. Kao treated one patient at the veterans’ hospital in Philadelphia, his aim was more than a little off.

Most of the seeds, 40 in all, landed in the patient’s healthy bladder, not the prostate.

It was a serious mistake, and under federal rules, regulators investigated. But Dr. Kao, with their consent, made his mistake all but disappear.

He simply rewrote his surgical plan to match the number of seeds in the prostate, investigators said.

The revision may have made Dr. Kao look better, but it did nothing for the patient, who had to undergo a second implant. It failed, too, resulting in an unintended dose to the rectum. Regulators knew nothing of this second mistake because no one reported it.

Two years later, in 2005, Dr. Kao rewrote another surgical plan after putting half the seeds in the wrong organ. Once again, regulators did not object.

Had the government responded more aggressively, it might have uncovered a rogue cancer unit at the hospital, one that operated with virtually no outside scrutiny and botched 92 of 116 cancer treatments over a span of more than six years — and then kept quiet about it, according to interviews with investigators, government officials and public records.

The team continued implants for a year even though the equipment that measured whether patients received the proper radiation dose was broken. The radiation safety committee at the Veterans Affairs hospital knew of this problem but took no action, records show.

One patient was the Rev. Ricardo Flippin, a 21-year veteran of the Air Force. “I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t stand,” he said, citing rectal pain so severe that he had to remain in bed for six months, losing his church job and his income.

Pastor Flippin first learned of what his doctors called a radiation injury not from the V.A., but from an Ohio hospital where he underwent rectal surgery in 2006 to treat the damage. “There are times when I don’t have control over my bowels,” he said one recent Sunday, after excusing himself during a service at a church in West Virginia where he now preaches.

The 92 implant errors resulted from a systemwide failure in which none of the safeguards that were supposed to protect veterans from poor medical care worked, an examination by The New York Times has found.For patients with prostate cancer, it is a common surgical procedure: a doctor... more

ClipsFC
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2 years ago
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Baby Brought to Hospital - High on Marijuana -!!

Source Link: http://linkbee.com/BabyHospitalized A one-and-a-half-year-old boy high... more

Viper7
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2 years ago
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United Kingdom Talk Video Saturday 6th June 2009 Widescreen

Saturday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch the show HERE ON... more

ChrisReardon
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Farmers markets bloom at hospitals

For years, hospitals have embodied a paradox. As patients are tethered to dialysis machines, and many lay bedridden from obesity-related diseases, the hospitals' fast food joints and cafeterias dispense fried goodies and slick burgers that contributed to such conditions.

"With fast food establishments, hospitals are sending a message that food is not important to health," said Jamie Harvey, a food coordinator of Health Care Without Harm, a coalition of hospitals and health-related groups. "But we know that's wrong. We're starting to see in a sweeping way that food is essential to health. Hospitals are adapting to that message."

Some hospitals around the country have gone on a diet: Deep fryers have gone cold, trans fats have been banished, and the glow of the golden arches (and other fast food symbols) have dimmed as leases have quietly gone unrenewed. Instead, these hospitals are offering an alternative food source: farmers markets.

Patients who've been warned to improve their diets can now walk out of the hospital and find locally grown strawberries, apricots and baby red potatoes sold on the parking lot. Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest not-for-profit health system, has 30 farmers markets in mostly Western states like California, Washington and Oregon.

"The focus on local food systems gives us food that's good for us, good for our children, good for farmers that grow it and it's good for the Earth," said Dr. Preston Maring, a family physician for 38 years who brought the concept of farmers markets to Kaiser in 2003. Having locally grown fruits and vegetables next to a hospital gives people the visual connection between good food and better health, Maring said.

"It's clear to me over all these years what people eat is the single most important determinant of their overall health. It just struck me one day -- why not bring good food to a place where people get their health care to see if it could become a focal point for education?"

One of the farmers, Roberto Rodriguez, who sells organic strawberries at the Kaiser Permanente farmers market in Oakland, California, said the customers say the local goods are "sweeter, fresh and last longer."For years, hospitals have embodied a paradox. As patients are tethered to dialysis... more

singrrr
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2 years ago
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United Kingdom Talk Video Saturday 9th May 2009

Saturday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch or listen to the show... more

ChrisReardon
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3 years ago
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Jay Leno misses first "Tonight Show" in 17 years

Jay Leno checked into a Los Angeles hospital on Thursday with an undisclosed illness,... more

Kepano
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3 years ago
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First anti-microbial paint developed!

______Lab Spaces______ "Scientists in South Dakota are reporting development of... more

Get_Cape
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3 years ago
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5 comments

Undercover nurse is struck off

Margaret Haywood, the 58 year old nurse who secretly filming a Brighton hospital for... more

smurph25
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3 years ago
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FDA Rules: 'Unapproved' Morphine to stay on market

A form of liquid morphine used by terminally ill patients will remain on the market... more

ClipsFC
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3 years ago
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Hartnett out of hospital

Actor Josh Hartnett has been released from a hospital in LA where he was being given... more

ClareW
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3 years ago
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Care homes warned over approach to dementia

A report from health and social care analysts Laing and Buisson has said that care... more

ClareW
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3 years ago
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Hedgehog left with no spines

An animal hospital is appealing for help after a mystery condition left a hedgehog... more

ClareW
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3 years ago
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6 comments

Student questioned over fake suicide art project

An art student is being questioned after faking madness, being admitted to a... more

ClareW
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3 years ago
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8 comments

Man gets UK's first sweat gland removal op

Restaurant manager Richard Brydon is the first person in the UK to have the new laser... more

ClareW
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3 years ago
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Your cell phone is dirtier than a toilet!

"Researchers at Ondokuz Mayis University in Turkey tested the cell phones of 200... more

DeliaTheArtist
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3 years ago
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CEO with a Heart: Saving jobs

It was the kind of meeting that is taking place in restaurant kitchens, small offices,... more

lvp
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3 years ago
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Firefighter called to move obese patients

Figures have shown that English firecrews have been called over 1780 times in the last... more

ClareW
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3 years ago
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Baby with two penises born

A baby boy from Russia has had to undergo surgery as he was born with two penises.

ClareW
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3 years ago
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