WOMAN LEFT ALONE FOR HOURS AT JOLIET DIALYSIS CENTER DIES

[okarol]

WOMAN LEFT ALONE FOR HOURS AT JOLIET DIALYSIS CENTER DIES

A patient died after being found alone for hours while awaiting a ride home from a dialysis center.

Monday, November 02, 2015 05:43PM

JOLIET, Ill. (WLS) -- Joliet police are investigating the death of a patient who died a day after she was left alone for hours while awaiting a ride home from a dialysis center.

The 71-year-old Shorewood woman had been going to dialysis three times a week at DaVita Renal Center West at the Silver Cross Professional building since September.

Transported by a Kurtz Medivan, she came on Saturday at 3 p.m. for her 4-hour treatment, but it wasn't until 11: 45 p.m. Saturday that authorities were called by the woman's daughter.

When they arrived, they saw the woman alert but disoriented in the waiting room and had to break in to get her. She was taken to a hospital, where she died several hours later.

A spokesperson with DaVita said: "Staff did a check of the dialysis suite and waiting room before locking up at 8:45 p.m. and leaving out of the back of the building" and that "the patient must have been in the front lobby."

Furthermore, he said: "We are working in partnership with local law enforcement to understand how, after leaving our dialysis suite, a patient apparently was not picked up by their transportation service. By law, we are prohibited from entering into business relationships with transportation companies. Patients choose and arrange their own transportation to and from treatments."

The vice president of Kurtz Ambulance Service said return service is not automatically scheduled by the company, rather, they are contacted by the facility or the patient once treatment is done. In this case, they say they were never contacted.

The DaVita spokesperson said they are continuing to review building security video to determine exactly what happened.

http://abc7chicago.com/news/woman-left-alone-for-hours-at-dialysis-center-dies-/1064988/

[Michael Murphy]

One of the most horrible things I have ever seen occurred in the center I go to a 84 year old women was told by the quack she was seeing that her cancer was inoperable and she was going to die.  So after dialysis with this news dropped on her like a bomb she had to wait two hours to be picked up to go back to rehab. I was still,on dialysis so as soon as I was off I went to check on her, she told me her story and I went to the head nurse and asked they contact her children to come over to be with her and as they were calling the transport company finally showed up. It was a good thing the doctor did not show up for a couple of days I would have punched him right in his smug mouth.  If she had been my mother I would look him up and still punch him.

[PrimeTimer]

Stories like this sicken me. Centers should designate at least one employee to check the place before locking up for the nite. At an office I worked at I had been designated one of the safety floor wardens. One of my jobs with that was to check and make sure no one had panicked and was stuck hiding somewhere during fire drills because in real life, sometimes people panic to the point where they freeze up and can't move. Maybe this elderly patient had gone back inside to use the restroom or a phone and for whatever reason, panicked or became disorientated and/or frozen somewhere. Mistakes happen but at a dialysis center and because of the very nature of dialysis being a medical treatment, no, there should be zero tolerance.   

[Michael Murphy]

Besides searching there should be a positive sign in and sign out of all non (anatomy) (should have been ambulatory) patients.  At arrival the staff should log the patient in and inform the transporter of the expected completetion time.  When the transporter arrives for pickup again in the same log the pickup is logged.  One look at the log and you know you got a problem.  Finally as previous  noted a final sweep of the facility should be done to ensure that no patient is left behind.

[cattlekid]

I live very close to this town and this has been the lead story on the radio and TV news since it broke last night.  I hope everyone involved at the facility from the FA on down is fired and never works with dialysis patients again.  The amount of finger pointing between the transport service and the dialysis center is shameful.  I get that due to the kickbacks and fraud you can't have the dialysis centers contracting for transport, but that law should be changed so that ORGANIZING transport to make sure patients are not left behind should be a no-brainer.

[Michael Murphy]

One of the things I was told by my center staff is that the charge nurse can't leave till the last patient is picked up, that they can't leave a patient unattended, if that's true no matter what the transporter did the final person responsible is at the center.  By the way I leaned that tidbit a couple of weeks ago when the nurse chewed the transporters a new one.

[iolaire]

The amount of finger pointing between the transport service and the dialysis center is shameful.

I don't see in any way how this could be blamed on the transport service, the dialysis center staff did not do their job to check the building before the left for the night.  And if patients wait in an area outside of the center it would still be their responsibility (according to me) to check that area.

Had they checked the building they would have found the woman and called the woman's contacts.