Patient In Labor: Hospital Info Desk Should Send To E.R., Not Wait For M.D. To Call
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
January 1998
Quick Summary: A knowledgeable person should have checked why the patient in labor was waiting three hours at the hospital’s information desk instead of being sent to the emergency room.
The patient should have been sent promptly to the emergency room, without waiting for her physician, even though the information desk had called her physician and been told to wait for him. NEW YORK SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, 1997.
The patient, who did not speak English, was brought in by her brother. She was having labor contractions and was bleeding. He brought her to the information desk, not to the emergency room. The information desk staff phoned her physician, who told them to have her wait for his arrival, which did not happen for nearly three hours.
Not only was she in labor, but it was a difficult breech presentation which required transfer by ambulance to another hospital for a cesarean. The baby was born with severe hypoxic brain damage. A $10,000,000+ court verdict resulted.
According to the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, it was wrong for this patient to have been left in the lobby to wait for her physician, even if the physician had so instructed the information desk over the phone. Nevarez vs. Hospital, 663 N.Y.S. 2d 190 (N.Y. App., 1997).