Long wait at hospital resulted in amputations

Malyia Jeffers was two years old when her parents took her to the emergency room of Methodist Hospital in Sacramento, CA, last year with a fever, skin discoloration and weakness. They were told to wait. And wait they did. Malyia grew weaker and sicker while they waited. Her parents repeatedly asked, then begged for treatment. But they were told to keep waiting. It was five hours before the baby

Pennsylvania jury finds ER medical malpractice

A jury in Scranton, PA, has awarded $1.2 million to the widow of a man who died as a result of emergency room medical malpractice. The jury found recently that Tyler Memorial Hospital and two doctors were negligent in the death of Michael Scarpa, 55, a retired railroad worker who died in 1999 two days after he was sent home from the emergency room. Scarpa had complained of chest pains and had

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

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 with head injury waited hours in ER

Stories abound of long waits in hospital emergency rooms and ensuing tragedy. Among the latest is a California case in which a woman waited in an ER for hours with a pellet from an air rifle in her brain before being transferred to another hospital for surgery. The result: Jessica Ramirez remains in a vegetative state in a North Hollywood nursing home. Ramirez would have been fine, her attorney