Woman sent home by ER dies next day

An overweight, middle-aged woman went to a hospital emergency room in Texas complaining of chest pain, tightness and discomfort in her chest -- apparent symptoms of a heart attack. But triage nurses at Christus St. Mary Hospital in Port Arthur designated Stacy Meaux as a Level 3 patient and a doctor treated her for irregular breathing and discharged the patient. The next day Meaux died of a heart

Tanning beds can cause skin cancers

Beware of tanning beds. The Federal Trade Commission recently issued an alert that indoor tanning devices can be hazardous to your health and took the additional step of charging the trade group that promotes sunless rays, the Indoor Tanning Association, with making false health and safety claims. The FTC said in a complaint against the association that it launched an advertising campaign in 2008

Among the latest product recalls announced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) are the following products:Copco, Copco and Wild Leaf Tea Co. Bristol model and Martha Stewart Collection Enameled Steel Tea Kettles (burn hazard - 132,000) Scotsman Group LLC, Scotsman Commercial Modular Cube Ice Machines (fire hazard - 43,000) Howard Berger Co. Inc., Indoor and Outdoor Extension

Hospital infections kill 48,000 yearly

A new study has found pneumonia and blood-borne infections contracted in hospitals in the United States led to 48,000 patient deaths. The study, reported in a recent edition of Archives of Internal Medicine was sponsored by a think tank called Resources for the Future and estimated patient deaths due to infections for the year 2006. One in every five of the deaths was caused by sepsis in patients

Long wait for care leaves man paraplegic

Yet another news report about a patient waiting a long time to receive hospital treatment … but the California case of Trent Hughes truly stretched the limits. Hughes fractured his spine while doing off-road driving. Emergency help rushed to the scene and he was airlifted to the Desert Regional Medical Center -- where the rush apparently ended. Hughes wasn't seen until the following day,

Woman given wrong prescription, developed illness

An Alabama woman dropped off a prescription for a painkiller at her local Rite Aid pharmacy and instead got a high dosage prescription of steroids. Not only was the medication wrong, the steroid dexamethasone is often used to treat cancer and can have severe side effects. The patient, arthritis sufferer Reva Tosh, also was given more than seven times the usual dose of the drug, which she