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Los Angeles hospital given 23 days to correct emergency procedures

Patient Financial Services Weekly Advisor, June 15, 2007

The Los Angeles hospital where a mother of three collapsed and died in the emergency room (ER) in May is in hot water as others are speaking out against the facility's negligence, reports ABCNews.com.

Edith Rodriguez, 43, collapsed in the ER at Martin Luther King Jr. Harbor Hospital and died approximately 45 minutes later as her boyfriend desperately tried to convince hospital staff, police, and 911 of the emergency.

Security cameras prove that Rodriguez collapsed and lay in the fetal position, and that hospital staff did not offer help, Frank Casco, the Rodriguez's family attorney, told ABCNews.com. Police officers in the ER were busy checking out Rodriguez for a possible parole violation as a janitor mopped the floor around her, Casco said.

Akilah Oliver, the father of a 20-year-old who also died in the hospital's waiting room in 2003, said his son waited for hours with crippling stomach pains before he died.

"It's always unimaginable when a child dies, but for him to die like this, as if he were invisible, it's really tragic and it's really unimaginable," Oliver told ABCNews.com.

Last week, federal inspectors gave King-Harbor officials 23 days to correct procedures or lose certification. The hospital has received this warning four times in less than four years.

At question, specifically, is the hospital's slow response to emergencies. Rodriguez's boyfriend went as far as to call 911 from a payphone outside the hospital, telling the operator that his girlfriend was "vomiting blood" and that hospital staff were "just watching her."

Minutes later, an unidentified woman also called 911.

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