Posted on 01/22/2006 9:01:44 AM PST by WestTexasWend
ORLANDO, Fla. (KRT) - Claudia Mejia checked into the hospital April 28 and gave birth to a healthy baby boy. But then things went terribly wrong.
While in Orlando Regional South Seminole Hospital, she contracted a "flesh-eating" bacteria, and 12 days later doctors amputated both her arms and her legs to save her life.
Now, Mejia, 24, of Sanford, Fla., has begun a legal battle. She is not asking for money. Right now, her lawyers are demanding that Orlando Regional Healthcare System Inc., which operates the Longwood, Fla., hospital, release information about other victims of the same bacteria.
The company has refused, citing patient privacy.
"This is a very tragic situation," said Anne Peach, ORHS's vice president of nursing.
More than 200 cases of the aggressive streptococcal infection, which is resistant to antibiotics, are reported annually in Florida, according to the state Health Department.
Mejia was in her lawyer's office in Orlando on Friday with her husband Timothy B. Edwards, 33, son Jorge Mejia, 7, and baby Matthew, 8 months. While the baby sat squirming in her husband's lap, Mejia caressed the boy's head with what is left of her right arm.
"Everything has turned difficult for me," she said. She cannot change her son's diapers, she said. She cannot play with her children. She cannot bathe herself.
"I want to walk on my own," she said. "I want to take care of my kids."
Mejia said she does not know how she got the infection, but, according to the suit, it had to have been at South Seminole Hospital.
She gave birth to Matthew with no problems.
"They told me everything was normal," Mejia said.
Then a rash appeared and she had severe pain in her belly.
The rash, the medical staff told her, was a possible allergic reaction to the sheets, and the stomach pain was normal for someone who'd just given birth, her husband said.
Two days later, though, her condition turned critical. She was moved to intensive care. Soon after, doctors performed a hysterectomy.
A few days later, they transferred her to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando.
According to her medical records, Mejia suffered not just the infection, she went into shock and her kidneys began to shut down. Gangrene set in.
Twelve days after she gave birth, doctors amputated her arms and legs.
"They gave her a choice of either dying or getting her limbs amputated," said her husband, a manager at Target in Lake Mary, Fla.
All told, Mejia was in the hospital more than three months. She's now at home in Sanford, where she has a remote-controlled wheelchair. She has artificial legs, as well, but she has the strength to walk on them for only about 30 minutes, her husband said.
Mejia sued in state Circuit Court in Sanford Jan. 13, asking a judge to order Orlando Regional to release records disclosing any other "adverse medical incidents" related to flesh-eating bacteria dating before her discharge Aug. 4.
"We want an answer to this: What happened to me?" Mejia said.
Her lawyer, E. Clay Parker, would not say whether he had already identified other people who contracted the infection at South Seminole.
In a letter last month, ORHS lawyer Jennings L. Hurt III said Mejia could not have records involving other patients. Despite a constitutional amendment requiring their disclosure, Hurt wrote, state lawmakers have yet to pass enabling legislation.
Someone needs to get O'Reilly on this.
Holy smokes.
Not nearly enough information in this article.
Rash, stomach pains, hysterectomy?
Gangrene enough to amputate all limbs??
It's tragic no matter what the cause. They need to find out where the infection came from but you can be sure that lawyers will get in the way to prevent an investigation of the hospital.
She can't kick over this one.
Picture and story that says she wasn't told she would be amputated (at least that's the take I got).
http://www.wftv.com/news/6253589/detail.html
Sounds like drug resistant staph. A danger in hospitals. According to another story it can kill one in four. This article is way short on information.
Here is my completely uneducated theory; while giving birth, an unsterile item (doc hand or instrument), was used. That is why she had to have a hysterectomy.
I hate lawsuits, but this time, I think she would be justified to sue for a billion gillion dollars.
She is a beautiful woman, and they have ruined her. Beyond tragic.
What is the difference between this and gangrene?
The "flesh eating bacteria" here is Group A Streptococcus or Streptococcus Pyogenes that can cause Impetigo, Strep throat or the more serious toxic shock syndrome, or necrotizing fasciitis (from which it gets the name "flesh eating"). Gangrene simply means death of tissue or necrosis. With a Strep infection such as this, the tissues can die leading to Gangrene. Gas Gangrene means dead tissue associated with a different bacterial infection coming from Clostridium which is totally different from Strep.
Extract:
"Strictly speaking, an epidemic is defined as an increase in the prevalence of disease over a baseline endemic rate. In this context, we are, in fact, experiencing an epidemic of severe invasive GAS infections; however, few concrete prospective population-based data support this notion. Estimates suggest that the incidence of these infections is 10 to 20 cases/ 100,000 population. Thus, the stimulus for such public interest has not been the incidence of the syndrome, but more likely, the dramatic nature of these infections."
Hospitals are where all those infected with such things gather.
It's up to the infection control folks to check the hospital
for such things...
If you want to get sick a hospital is a great place to do just that,and an urban hospital has got to be the most dangerous kind.
imo
That's considered a nosocomial infection, isn't it? Aren't hospitals supposed to keep track of those? Are they required to tell patients admitted about them? Or is it up to a patient to ask?
This is worrisome. BTTT!
It would seem that we are not getting a lot of accurate info on this.
Cha-ching!
"resistant to antibiotics"-- A direct result of misuse of antibiotics which can be bought over the counter just across the border. No prescription needed.
ORHS is less than five miles from me, and we've visited their ER many times.
My husband and I read about this woman in the paper yesterday, and her photo horrified my daughter. She kept pointing at the woman's amputated arm and saying, "Mommy hurt! That mommy's hurt!"
Actually the flesh eating bacteria is a particularly virulent strep infection. It gives you a condition called necrotizing fasciitis, where the infection spreads under the skin along muscles
Resistant staph is also a problem, but produces a different clinical syndrome.
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