One of Fresno's premier hospitals, Saint Agnes Medical Centers, is the target of a scathing report by the state Department of Public Health for procedures that endanger patient safety. To read our editorial about the problems -- and the lively debate from readers, click here. To read the most recent news story, click here.
The same day the editorial was printed, Bee reporter Barbara Anderson broke the news that the hospital has suspended its open-heart surgeries. It is bringing in its auditors from its corporate parent -- Michigan-based Trinity Health, as well as auditors from the outside to review the cardiac surgery program. Though it's painful to hear such news about the hospital so many have trusted to take care of us when we are ill and vulnerable, the more information we know, the better.
Also on Friday, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center officials announced separately that they have stopped sending heart surgery patients to the hospital and it was unclear when -- or whether -- they would resume referrals.
The Fresno Bee editorial "Saint Agnes failed community" (June 21) told it
all too well. Why is Gail Marshall's BLOG headed by the photo of a construction
site? To drive home her point that "Saint Agnes is in pain." ? ? ? ?
What pain?
Does it hurt to endanger the lives and health of patients?
Did it hurt the physician who left the operating theater while an
assistant did the surgery?
Did it hurt management to punish those who pointed out the intolerable
conditions in the hospital?
Did it hurt the leaders not to hear the warnings about the problems?
Did it hurt the trustees to ignore the already known, existing problems
of patient neglect, bordering malpractice?
I don't know if I am allowed to use the name of the nun who ran the hospital for
many years. Under her stewardship the hospital had the reputation of excellence far beyond Fresno.
And now, not even Kaiser Permanente dares to send their cardiac patients for surgery,
lest they might get very ill or even die.
Am I particularly upset about Mr. Mathew Abraham, the chief executive? No!
But I am very upset by the reports about the medical people involved.
In Charles Dickens' old England people were terrified to go to a hospital.......
It is unfortunate that they are facing these troubles but patient safety has to come first no matter what. Hopefully they will get it figured out as to where the errors are occuring so they can get back to the business of saving lives. Hospitals have to take it more seriously when a doctor has repeated problems with surgeries or patient care and cancel their hospital privileges.
A friend of mine died at Saint Agnes because he was given the wrong medication.
As for infections, they're the gift that keeps on giving because of the financial incentive involved. They keep people in the hospital longer, which means that insurance can be billed for more.
If hospitals had to eat the cost of treating infections, instead of just passing them along to the insurance company, they might do more to prevent them.
Ask any of their (non-union) nurses about multi-resistant-staph-infection and see the blood drain from their faces...hospitals are very dangerous places where hundreds of thousands of people die every year from issues other than the ones they came in with. It's become an ugly industry, with the worlds best E.R.'s. We need single-payer health care, most doctors and the vast majority of nurses agree, it's a broken system and the insurance industry is to blame.
have written several comments that have not been posted. another comment i have, after reading about multi-resistant staph infections. i was seen in er for a staph infection. it was lanced and suppose to have gone to lab for testing....but 2 days later, i was admitted into a community hospital for the infection. the community hospital i was admitted into called st agnes to find out results of what kind of staph i had, but the lab did not have record of ever receiving the sample...therefore...it was just "mis-placed"?!! Nobocy ever knew the answer..needless to say....it was not handled with any care whatsoever at st agnes and it did end up being...after tested by community hopital, MRSA. So...what trash can did my sample end up in? why didnt they follow protocal with the sample? for all i know...it sat there in the room while the next patient took the bed space.
God! Where do all those apologists with their farfetched alibis always come from?
The government did its job and made the finding that the unusually high post
surgery infections and two death, maybe three, was to be traced to the medical
community of St. Agnes; including physicians high up in the hierarchy .
And the warning had been issued many months prior. But it was ignored.
Now the assertion is being made that it is the insurance companies' fault that those
cardiac patients suffered post-surgery staph infections and those consequent deaths.
And what kind of an excuse is that, that in happens in many hospitals. Yes it does.
And it is considered a medical dilemma nationwide. But it was not send from outer
space, it is of our own making over the last 60 years or so.
And how does union membership or lack thereof enter into the equation?
I, personally believe that a national health plan would serve the people best. Under such
a plan, the question of the patient's affordability would be out of the picture. Physicians
could concentrate on the art of healing. That there always will be a number whose greed
will get in the way, would not detract from the workability of such a health plan.
But to stop digressing, in the case of the of Saint Agnes scandal, we find no high level,
medical or administrative acceptance of responsibility. Did the devil make them do it?
The insurance industry figures into every medical decision made, Isabell,...who gets care, how much, how little, how long, what Doc's can or cannot treat, and what medications/treatments may be prescribed,...the C.N.A.(nurses union) is on the side of good care, they feel that adequate staffing is key to a hospitals performance. Would you want to be in the care of a nurse that didn't have time for a lunch-break during a 12 hour shift?...tragicly, the same lobbys that ruined our nations health-care, are once again in the drivers seat of the presidential campaigns.
I was employed at St Agnes as an OR nurse 1979-1998. I remembered the facility fondly with excellent patient care under direction of sisters Gladys Marie/Ruth Marie. Our health care system is broken.
I thought that after a week, the BLOG was dead. Shows that three weeks of
even knowing the word blog, is not enough to be a blog expert.
The nurse Chris Lytle, formerly employed at Saint Agnes hospital, in her post of 6.29. , fondly remembers the hospital's excellence when sister Ruth K. was at the helm. And so do I. But the keyword is...was...(past tense.)
Present tense: The name of a business which once victimized us by blowing peach fuzz into the atmosphere around homes, and had to be stopped by the Health Department, is now linked with the
top level oversight of the hospital. Perhaps I am unfair...but I shall
never forget the coughing and sneezing as well as the itchy rash.
My isurance is trying to force me to have sugery at St.Agnes Hospital fresno. I am tring to get all the information I can.