Posted on 01/21/2006 4:15:11 PM PST by Popman
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee.
The woman filed a complaint against Orlando Regional Healthcare Systems, she said, because they won't tell her exactly what happened. The hospital maintains the woman wants to know information that would violate other patients' rights.
Claudia Mejia gave birth eight and a half months ago at Orlando Regional South Seminole. She was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando where her arms and legs were amputated. She was told she had streptococcus, a flesh eating bacteria, and toxic shock syndrome, but no further explanation was given.
The hospital, in a letter, wrote that if she wanted to find out exactly what happened, she would have to sue them.
"I want to know what happened. I went to deliver my baby and I came out like this," Mejia said.
Mejia said after she gave birth to Mathew last spring, she was kept in the hospital with complications. Twelve days after giving birth at Orlando Regional South Seminole hospital, she was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center where she became a quadruple amputee. Now she can not care for or hold her baby.
"Yeah, I want to pick him up. He wants me to pick him up. I can't. I want to, but I can't," she said. "Woke up from surgery and I had no arms and no legs. No one told me anything. My arms and legs were just gone."
Her 7-year-old son, Jorge, asks his mother over and over what happened to her. Neither she nor her husband has the answer.
"I love her, so I'll always stick with her and take it a day at a time myself," said her husband, Tim Edwards.
The couple wants to know how she caught streptococcus, during labor or after. She doesn't know. She knows she didn't leave the hospital the same.
"And why, I want to know why this happened," she said.
Her attorney, Judy Hyman wrote ORHS a letter saying, according to the Florida statute, "The Patients Right To Know About Adverse Medical Incidents Act," the hospital must give her the records.
"When the statute is named 'Patients Right To Know,' I don't know how it could be clearer," Hyman said.
Hildy, you cannot possibly believe that.
Precisely.
I agree......this smells.......
My Dad lost a leg to Diabetes....and he had to sign forms from here to hell and back........
thats' understood...these unique staph infection aren't new...in the late 1990s, 'Popular' Media abounded w/ stories of these kind of infections.
Well, I'm saying The lawsuit specifically mentioned in the article. That lawsuit was asking the hospital for private patient records. I'm not saying the ultimate objective isn't about money...I'm just trying to understand this particular part of the story.
http://www.foogle.biz/mrsa/
Oh, I see what you're saying. But my point is that she's trying to get the records so she can get more money.
Newer pics, I think...and the article says remote-controlled wheelchair. Is that the same as motorized?
I would think it would be.
Translation: A nurse or doctor or pharmacist screwed up REALLY, REALLY badly and they are not going to admit it without a court order.
Not quite. Read what they were demanding to satisfy the meaning of "find out exactly what happened".
"......her lawyers are demanding that Orlando Regional Healthcare System Inc., which operates the Longwood hospital, release information about other victims of the same bacteria."
That means that if Blood of Tyrants had had such an infection, she and her lawyers were demanding the information in Blood of Tyrants' medical record.
That is specifically prohibited by Federal medical privacy law under HIPAA .
That makes no sense at all. If the state constitution requires it, then it requires it. Sheesh, talk about trying to lawyer one's way out of reality...
That's WAY different than the original article. She doesn't want to know 'why?', she wants to know, "Are there others like me?"
And after she does that, the criminal courts can take the case.
She wants to know if there are others, and from all the articles I've read, probably "why", too. And she isn't suing, yet. She's simply trying to get information. However, I would suspect she wants the information to help her with an eventual lawsuit. I really don't know from the information given, so I am speculating.
See article, plus posts 16 and 75.
>>>This is one case I'd like to be on the jury.
Well, I hope you're never on a jury, period; you don't have the WHOLE story -- and the part you "have" is wrong.>>>
So maybe you can inform me. But considering if I were on a jury, I would have more info. Also I am going on what I have read on the article I am posting, my opinion is sound.
At least when I am commenting on an article Howlin, I am basing my opinion on what is in the article. You, on the other hand, seem to have gotten lately to not READING an article before making ridiculous comments.
>>>See #16....they did give her info on her own condition, just not on others who may have had the same thing happen. The posted article is misleading.>>>
They might have given her info, but did they release her records? If not, the article is not just misleading, but compeletely inaccurate.
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