Posted on 01/21/2006 4:15:11 PM PST by Popman
Let's assume that you are the multi-million dollar Orlando Regional Healthcare System Inc and that I am a former "flesh-eating bacteria" patient.
Let's further assume that I'm a greedy SOB.
If you release my medical information with my name crossed out, how long do you think it will take before my blood-sucking lawyer is claiming that there was enough information on that record to individually identify me as a "flesh-eating bacteria" patient thereby violating my HIPAA civil rights and causing me untold embarrassment, nightmares, nervous incapacitation, loss of libido, , etc., etc., etc.?
She already has a lawyer so filing a lawsuit is just a little bit more paperwork.
Once a lawsuit is filed, any release of information during discovery is by Court order so the corporation can no longer be held liable for release of that information.
The corporation is specifically asking to be sued with one lawsuit to avoid several additional potential lawsuits and the wrath of the HIPAA Police.
Nice going, Gummy Dear! You always come up with the goods! :)
This sort of thing happened to a lady that was bitten by a spider
(presumably brown recluse) in California, maybe in the early 1990s.
She got bit, got sick, got to the hospital, passed out and woke up
without her limbs (or at least most of them, IIRC).
Whether it's a toxin or bacterial infections, in some cases you die...
or you probably regret surviving.
She knows she didn't leave the hospital the same.
Understatement?
BTW What do you call a man with no arms and no legs?
BOB!!
if I were in her shoes, I'd do the same thing
i don't think she has shoes anymore....
yea.. that's basically what I'm saying. And she has every right to do that.
Hi, Schweethaht.... ;-)
According to the article it says this particular lawsuit isn't about the money...
Hildy, you cannot possibly believe that.
This lawsuit is to obtain the information so the money suit can be initiated and proceed.
This story makes no sense whatsoever. How can someone NOT know why they had their arms and legs cut off? Something is missing from this story.
I don't think people in this country are fully aware, yet, of just how bad MRSA has become and the danger we all face from it's potential.
see 16 and 75
I KNOW THAT. I've stated that...I was just talking about THIS PARTICULAR lawsuit that asks for patient information. Of course the end is money. But I was only referring to THIS lawsuit. And by the way, I hope she wins a bundle.
"generally speaking, the rate of infections in most US hospitals is astonishingly high"
Ding ding ding....we have the real story here.
If mothers understood how at risk they and their babies were for a variety of infections, picked up at the hospital, the would never consider giving birth in that nasty environment. Certain forms of staph only live at hospitals.
I am a home birth advocate, I can only pray for this woman and the suffering she is experiencing. With all of the antibiotic resistent bacteria we have now, the safest thing one can do is to give birth in the sanctity of the home surrounded by familiar germs.
Jenny
Very interesting. I remember when I worked in nursing homes. I washed my hands every time I moved to a different patient.
Years ago I had an ulcer and my red blood count went dangerously low. My doctor wanted me to go into the hospital. I told him I was too sick to go to the hospital. I didn't want to get some sort of infection from strange bacteria.
I'm sure she will.
you wonder why hospitals don't take the initiative to improve - how hard can it be to use purell.
The "right to privacy" is a fiction, created by government apologists to shield it from having to reveal its activities. Government has, above all, the obligation to disclose, to everybody, everything that it does.
Some national security and perhaps police-investigation exceptions exist, doubtless. But in the main, government needs to be open about everything.
When you ask what to take when you're sick in Florida, the answer is "the first plane north."
Leni
I am so with you on this, Hildy!
At least her lawyer is altruistic. She knows up front that the lady can't afford to pay her an arm & a leg for her services.
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