Virginia

Archived Posts from this Category

October 1, 2008

US doctor charged with medical misconduct after baby death

Posted by E.Nigma under Virginia
Leave a Comment 

An American obstetrician has been charged with professional misconduct after a baby he helped deliver died from a brain bleed.

Ella Irihapti McMillan-Meager died at Southland Hospital on June 12, 2006 after obstetrician Enrique Tomeu breached guidelines during her birth two days earlier.

An inquest into Ella’s death found Dr Tomeu contributed to the baby’s death when he climbed on the birthing bed to get better leverage for his pull on suction cups.

Dr Tomeu has since resigned and returned to the United States to continue working as an obstetrician.

The director of proceedings for the Health and Disability Commissioner, Theo Baker, yesterday told The Press she had laid a charge of professional misconduct against Dr Tomeu with the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal (HPDT).

If it upholds the charge, the tribunal could force Dr Tomeu to pay compensation to Ella’s parents, Felicity McMillan and Nathan Meager, or get the Medical Council to recommend US authorities take away his licence to practise medicine.

Commissioner Ron Paterson released a damning report in August on Dr Tomeu’s handling of the case, condemning his decision to perform a vacuum delivery, where a suction cup is attached to the baby’s head, after two previous attempts failed.

Mr Paterson also criticised Dr Tomeu’s birthing technique and his attempts to bully staff into falsifying records to cover up his actions.

HPDT executive officer Gay Fraser said it was unusual for the tribunal to hold a hearing about someone who was no longer working in New Zealand.

Dr Tomeu abruptly closed his Virginia Beach obstetrics practice in the US in 2004 – after being sued repeatedly for allegedly injuring babies during delivery.

According to Virginia Beach Circuit Court records, Dr Tomeu was named as a defendant in seven malpractice lawsuits over 10 years before coming to New Zealand.

Three of those cases resulted in payments to the plaintiffs – two settlements and one jury verdict – totalling more than US$500,000 ($666,844).

On his profile on the Virginia Board of Medicine website, Dr Tomeu put the New Zealand death down to his “communication skills”.

He said: “Bad outcome on birth June 2006. Clinical privileges suspended during investigation. Investigation did not fault clinical management, but was critical of my communication skills within New Zealand. I returned to the US before investigation was completed.”

The Virginian Pilot newspaper reported Dr Tomeu was now on the staff at Crist (crct) Clinic for Women in Jacksonville, in North Carolina.

Dr Tomeu’s profile on the North Carolina Medical Board website recorded he had a medical licence and had faced no public disciplinary action in North Carolina.

There is no mention of his history in Virginia or New Zealand.

– NZPA

 

August 15, 2007

Virginia State Hospital Employees Need Whistle Blower Protection

Posted by E.Nigma under Virginia
Leave a Comment 

Charlottesville Prejudice And Civil Rights Watch

Several years ago, a physician at Western State Hospital was fired after speaking out about poor patient care in the medical unit. He won his case in the State Supreme Court but was still barred from returning to his job and a law was enacted that took away the right of any state hospital employee in the future in the same position to be protected from retaliatory firing for speaking up or to sue if unfairly fired for speaking up. Why is Virginia not willing to encourage staff who work with people in the most vulnerable situations to speak up about abuse or bad care as Delaware is? When will Virginia act to protect people in state facilities and employees who care about what happens to them?

TROUBLE AT DELAWARE PSYCHIATRIC CENTER
Abuse whistle-blower says bosses retaliated
Patients’ safety also jeopardized by continual reassignments, advocate and lawmaker agree
By LEE WILLIAMS, The News Journal
Posted Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Nurse Karen Stoppel claims DPC management has retaliated against her by forcing her to work in varying departments with little orientation.

The News Journal/CARLA VARISCO

A whistle-blowing nurse at the Delaware Psychiatric Center says administrators are retaliating against her — and putting patients at risk — for talking publicly about patient abuse and acts of vandalism at the state hospital.
In a newspaper interview published by The News Journal five weeks ago, nurse Karen Stoppel said her windshield had been broken and she received a threatening letter after telling administrators that an attendant had abused a patient whose mouth was covered with a towel while she was restrained at the ankles and wrists.
Stoppel’s story broke while she was out on short-term disability for stress-related illnesses, which she said were caused by the incidents she described to the newspaper.
When she returned to work Aug. 2, rather than sending Stoppel to the admissions unit, where she knows the patients, hospital administrators began switching Stoppel, who has worked at DPC for 19 months, from unit to unit with no notice and no orientation period. Such switching increases the likelihood of a medication error, she said, which could harm or kill a patient, and bring an end to Stoppel’s nursing career.
“If I gave someone an aspirin who is allergic, it can cause anaphylactic shock. I could create a medical emergency,” Stoppel said Monday. “They’re setting me up to fail. Since I’ve been back, I haven’t worked the same unit twice.”
Worried for her patients and her career, Stoppel contacted her union president.
“There is an appearance that it could be retaliatory or incredibly insensitive — a potential I will be reviewing with our grievance committee this week,” said Dave Saxton, president of the nurses union, Local 2305.
Proper patient identification is critical, and protections are written into the contract between the hospital and the nurses union, according to documents obtained by The News Journal. Section 13.21 of the contract states that if a nurse is pulled to a unit other than his or her own, the state will provide another employee who regularly works that unit to assist in identifying patients in order to safely dispense drugs.
At DPC, the patients do not wear identification bracelets. Instead, the hospital relies on its staff and a medication book with the patients’ names and pictures.
“But when they’re sleeping under the covers at 5 a.m., they don’t look anything like the pictures in the book, so you need someone who knows them,” said Stoppel, who has a master’s degree in nursing and 23 years of experience in the field. She’s worked at several local psychiatric hospitals and DPC.

Read the rest at: