Hospital Fined After Operating on Wrong Side of Body Again

A Rhode Island hospital was fined $50,000 and reprimanded by the state Department of Health Monday after their third situation this year of a doctor performing brain surgery on the wrong side of a patient’s head. The most recent situation happened on Friday when the chief resident started brain surgery on the wrong side of the head of an 82 year old patient. The patient is okay, but back in August, a patient died a few weeks after a doctor performed brain surgery on the wrong side of the head. After that the hospital received an independent review of its neurosurgery practices and it has to have better verification from doctors of its surgery plans. The hospital says that it is currently working with the Department of Health to reduce the risk of medical errors. They also say they are re-evaluating their training policies and providing more oversight by giving the nursing staff the power to make sure that the procedures are properly followed.

Along with the fine, the state has ordered the hospital to make a neurosurgery checklist that has information about the location of the surgery and the patient’s medical history. They also have to make a plan to train the staff of the new checklist.

Baby Crib Recalls

About 1 million Simplicity and Graco cribs are being recalled after three children had gotten trapped in their cribs and died of suffocation. The three children were 6-months old, 9-months old, and 1-year old.
In all of the deaths, the buyer had installed the drop-rail side of the crib upside down. This causes a gap in the crib that children can slide into and suffocate. There have been 55 reports of the crib’s drip side detaching or the hardware not holding the side to the crib. All of the cribs were made in China.
Back in June, about 40,000 Nursery-in-a-Box cribs, manufactured by Simplicity, were recalled because the assembly instructions didn’t explain correctly how to attach the drop side. The current recall involves mainly the Simplicity and Graco cribs made from January 1998 to May 2007. The recall involves many models and model numbers.
A person that owns one of these cribs should make sure that the drop side is installed right side up and is securely attached. The newer models have a flexible tab at the top of the lower track and a permanent stop at the bottom. The older models had a flexible tab at the bottom of the lower tracks.
The models that are recalled include: Aspen 3 in 1, Aspen 4 in 1, Nursery-in-a-Box, Crib N Changer, Combo, Chelsea, Pooh 4 in 1, Ultra 4 in 1, and Ultra 5 in 1. Simplicity is offering free repairs for cribs with older hardware.