I just heard about this and was going to put a post about this! What a disgrace! I feel terribly for the family and I would not lose any respect for them if they ended up suing the hospital and the 9-1-1 operator (who said this is not an emergency)- usually I am against people being sue happy. This poor family watching their wife and mother die a horrible death in an emergency room waiting! What is this world coming too!

It really is a very sad case but I don't fault the 911 operator in that the patient was already at a hospital...they aren't responsible to shuttle people from hospital to hospital. Are they? I'm sure she could have been nicer about it. I fault the hospital for not even trying to help her - but maybe they were unstaffed, what else was going on at the time etc I have read about the hospital it's really a horrible place, I'm surprised it's still open.

I would fault the hospital, not 911...911 response team 's job is to respond to an emergency not provide transportation to another emergency facility. Like Oregano said, yes they could have been nicer about it, but this was not their fault...She was AT an Emergency room...that hospital is the one at fault. What a tragedy for that woman and her family.

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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass~ It's about learning to dance in the Rain

How horrible! To hear of that happening gives me chills. I hope the family does something about it. It would be well deserved.

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~SONJA~

I am a nurse in a hospital and I absolutely believe that this happens more than we know. I refuse to work in our ER due to the understaffing of nurses which makes them unable to properly care for their patients. It is all about the almighty buck. Hospital administrators sit at their desks and look at numbers and that is all they care about. They have no idea what actually happens in the hospital and with patient care.

And most doctors could care less too. We have had patients literally about to code and the doctors will not return our pages and if they do they take forever to come see the patient while we try to keep them alive. As nurse we are the ones who get yelled at by patients and families when the doctor's aren't doing their job. Unfortunately we need an order from the doctor to even give out Tylenol.

Please support any safe-staffing bills that may be in legislation in your state because it is the nurses who will save your life or your familly and friends life in the hospital. Right now hospitals in most states can just decide if one nurse takes care of 4 patients per shift or 10.
And in the hospital right now if you are on a regular floor you would have been in the ICU 10 years ago and if you are in the ICU you would have been dead 10 years ago. So nurses are taking care of sicker and sicker patients and I think we would all agree we would rather be taken care of by a nurse who only has 3 other very sick patients to take care of instead of 9!!

Sorry for the rant but people are dying in hospitals everyday due to understaffing.
Please spread the word.

I so believe that this happens more than we know--I worked in a small hospital and have seen them more concerned that the person was wanted by the police and not did anything, my sis was telling me about her friend asperating during an asthma attack and dying and the paramedics being more concerned tha he used drugs and what he could have taken to see he was choking and he died and he was a younger man! Scary huh?

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This doesn't make me feel any better about my odds if I do go into the hospital! Seriously though, it is a shame that medical care, any medical care, so often comes down to the whims of the dollar, which from reading the mentioned article, is what I felt happened to this woman. Even in our own small hospital I've sat and waited (for an allergic reaction) for a large amount of time! It usually is easier to try to get into our local doctor - as long as it is a day that he is working!

ITA! Unreal.

The hospital where this poor woman died -- King/Drew Medical Center -- has had many questionable and mysterious deaths over the years. The LA County Board of Supervisiors has threatened to close it several times; however, no one has had the courage to do so. Their medical school has been unaccredited at times, they have nurses that do not even meet minimum standards, numerous doctors have lost their medical licenses, etc. This place is horrible.

MAn that is just not right!!!!! That ER should be shut down if they can't help someone who is obviously critical.

I also don't blame the 911 operator for this womans death but think that they did not handled the situation very well. I work on an ambulance and know that the 911 operator CAN NOT send a 911 ambulance to an ER to pick up a patient and take them to another hospital at the request of the patient. I remember a similar situation happening here. However the patient was no way near as critical as this woman was. Anyway the dispatcher explained to the patient that they can not pick him up at the hospital, but if he was to leave hospital property then they could. So that is what happened. The patient walked off of hospital property and the ambulance pick him up off the street and took him to a different ER.

It is too bad that this dispatcher didn't tell her this info. He is a loser in my book!!!!!!