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UMC moves to fire six employees in probe of ignored patient
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Photo by Craig L. Moran
Las Vegas attorney Jacob Hafter speaks Friday on behalf of Roshunda Abney, a 25-year-old woman who went to UMC and waited for six hours without getting help. Abney went home and began delivering a baby. Her baby, Angel, was pronounced dead at the hospital. Next to Hafter is Angel's grandmother, Chandra Dewberry-Hardwick.
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Apr. 10, 2012 | 10:15 a.m.
University Medical Center officials have moved to fire six employees involved in the care of a pregnant Las Vegas woman who went untreated in the emergency room for six hours.
The employees were all suspended pending termination proceedings for their roles in 25-year-old Roshunda Abney's Nov. 30 visit to the hospital, said Kathy Silver, the hospital's chief executive officer.
She would not identify the employees by name or job because the termination proceedings were ongoing.
Abney went to UMC with severe abdominal pain and went untreated despite pleading for help and moaning in pain. Abney and her fiancé eventually left the hospital and, after a brief visit to nearby Valley Hospital Medical Center, went home, where she gave birth to a premature baby girl. Paramedics revived the baby, named Angel, and took her to UMC, where she was pronounced dead, according to Abney's lawyer, Jacob Hafter.
"This will not be tolerated at UMC," Silver said.
Hafter said Friday that the hospital's actions are just a first step toward addressing patient care problems at the county-run hospital.
"It's our hope that these suspensions are not just lip service, that there is an actual process in place to fix the malignant problems at UMC," he said.
He said Abney and her fiancé, Raffinee Dewberry, were still grieving the death of their daughter.
On the day of the incident, the couple first went to a Quick Care clinic seeking treatment of Abney's pain.
A doctor performed a brief physical and ordered a urinalysis and urine pregnancy test, but Abney was unable to urinate. She was transferred to UMC for "higher care," according to patient records.
Abney, who said she didn't know she was pregnant, went to UMC and waited. As the night wore on, other patients in the waiting room volunteered to let Abney go ahead of them, said Victoria Taylor, one of those patients.
Abney and Dewberry left after six hours, saying they were convinced they would not get the help she needed. They went to nearby Valley Hospital Medical Center, but she said she was in too much pain to fill out the required paperwork. The couple said Valley officials suggested to them that if they had waited so long without help at UMC, they should not expect things to be different there.
The couple picked up some pain medication and went home. Twenty minutes later, Abney went to the bathroom and gave birth to the girl, Angel, who weighed 1 pound 6 ounces.
The hospital's investigation included interviews with staffers, reviews of patient records and viewings of hospital video recordings taken that night.
"We're doing everything we can to sort out the events of what happened," Silver said.
The investigation was ongoing and more employees could be disciplined, she said.
"We don't like the fact we didn't live up to the expectations of our patients," she said.
Valley Hospital officials have denied the couple's allegations.
Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@review journal.com or 702-383-0281.
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please dont feel sorry for the er workers from what i seen they huddle and talk smack and wear a title on there clothes, my husband also was ignored and i tried to talk to one and they never looked up or cked up we were there 6hrs for nothing had driven by ambulace for 2 hrs sat 6 was in a room finally was getting a ct the next day 3 wrkers kept saying that from 10 to 2 never happened was discharged husband had had a mylogram prior headache kicked in bad 4th day so our hospital transferred to umc thinking he would get proper care, wrong had contrast dye or blood in spaces of brain, but they didnt know which and discharged him we will seek treatment else where see contrast dye looks the same as blood on ct that was done prior before going to the umc. but released with tylenol, he has a incomplete spinal cord injury and pacemaker and still very young all this stemming from neck injury 15 yrs ago , it doesnt matter who u are or age u will follow those train cadets they r in charge and u can say wat u want some r not listening or most ,theysoup paper wrk diagnoises to cover there a double s, thats why lawsuites are so bad and they like to belly ache about it so do your job, there like a 3 ring circus there, and they all look happy! so dont feel sorry for them they not know wat they r doing sure they do, its called a system. dont get me wrong once u get in a room some r nice but some just lie and repeat them selfs for hrs and then they still dont follow through. shame on them
Wake Up does have a point. I have a friend who didn't realize she was pregnant up until 5 monthes along. That child has physical and mental issues due to the lack of prenatal care and we the tax payers have footed the bill for this child's very expensive high risk delivery and years later are still paying for their special medical and educational needs. I do have compassion for Ms Abney as I know from experience that losing a baby can be a difficult experience but I can't help but wonder what someone who does not have insurance is doing trying to have a baby in the first place as was stated in previous articles. Not to mention that if she was trying, how could she be so blind to the symptoms of which loss of menstral cycle is only one.
That said I also have compassion for the overworked employees of UMC who on a daily basis are confronted with a waiting room full of patients who run the gamut from mentally ill to irate to those genuinely in need of emergency care. Unfortunately the illegal aliens who have no other choice for medical care, the Metro prisoners looking to put off their stint in CCDC by faking chest pains, and junkies who are looking for a pill fix tend to bog down the system.
Because so many of these aforementioned are not insured and have no way of paying the costly bills they rack up is why our County run hospital doesn't have an RN performing the function of triage and doesn't have enough medical personnel or security to keep the whole system functioning properly.
Compassion? What about the compassion for overworked, overwhelmed employees who are being scapegoated? Merry Christmas to them, right?
How many ailments involve abdominal pain? Many.
ER workers have to make the best judgment calls they can, because the resources are not there for better than that. No doubt they have to follow some sort of protocol.
You want to pass judgment? Then fund this institution so nobody has to wait.
Personally, I have far more compassion for the scapegoats than for the woman who could have unprotected sex but couldn't be bothered to figure out why she had no menstrual cycle for months.
If employees are rude and obnoxious to patients, yes, they should receive some admonishment, if the patients were not rude and obnoxious first. But was that the case? I cannot imagine that all six blamed employees did not follow protocol, and did not do the best they could under circumstances of poor funding.
What do you expect overworked employees to do? They must make judgment calls. How would you like to be in their position? Answer: You wouldn't. So easy to pass judgment when you aren't being overworked and stressed like they are.
KUDOS TO 702 & ZZ.
These public employees whose jobs are on the line are scapegoats. They're the ones who should be suing. These people are overworked and overwhelmed, dealing with how many like this? How many illegals? How many women who DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE PREGNANT???????????? They have to work with whatever funding there is, no matter how shorthanded that means the hospital is.
I wish you who are being blamed better jobs, and a happy holiday season despite this. We live in a society that is becoming STUPIDER by the minute. Please sue the hospital administrators if they choose to fire you, and good luck.
soundslikemasshysteria wrote on December 12, 2009 09:01 AM: "Hey dopes(that post negatives)... And the point of getting pregnant outside of wedlock the stats show that more than a third of the babies born in this country are produced by unwed parents. So, save your holier than thou opinion for the birds in your head. Reality bites and this is reality. "
AND THE INCREASING NUMBER OF PEOPLE WITH SEX ORGANS AND NO BRAINS OR SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY BRINGING CHILDREN INTO THIS COUNTRY IS A MAJOR PROBLEM. WE ARE GOING DOWN, PARTIALLY DUE TO PEOPLE LIKE YOU.
THE MOVIE IDIOCRACY = THE FUTURE OF AMERICA