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Tapes reveal details of hospital death

Healthcare Security Weekly, June 18, 2007

The death of a woman at King-Harbor Hospital in Los Angeles was back in the news last week, after newly-released tapes of 911 calls show she died after doctors ignored her and emergency dispatchers would not arrange her transfer to another facility.

State authorities are investigating the May 3 death of the 43-year-old woman in the hosptial's emergency room and federal inspectors gave the hospital 23 days to correct dificiencies or  risk losing federal funding, reported the Associated Press.

Transcripts of the tapes show the woman's boyfriend and a bystander called 911 to report hospital staff would not treat the woman while she vomited blood and was in obvious pain the facility waiting room. Dispatchers would not send paramedics because the woman was already in a hospital. The woman died of a perforated bowel on her way out of the hospital after police arrested her for a parole violation.

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