Medical error can have devastating effects. Here, in their own words, Connecticut families tell the stories of how medical error changed their lives forever.
Laura Seckley
On September 5, 1997 our daughter Laura was born. Due to negligence our beautiful child will have a lifetime of kidney transplants and disability.
I knew something was wrong during the delivery. I kept asking for a doctor. But the midwife, believing she had more experience than the physician who had only had his license for three months, did not call him. The nurse knew something was wrong, too. But instead of saying something or getting me and my baby some help, she just changed the medical records to show that she notified the midwife of my daughter’s tachycardia (rapid heartbeat).
A series of medical errors and judgments led to Laura’s damaged kidneys, significant scarring and her projected lifelong need for kidney transplants. This has had a profound effect on my husband and me. I am very afraid to leave her; afraid that something else might happen. My husband is clinically depressed and has had a difficult time with my fear and his beautiful daughter’s disability.
Our hope for Laura’s future now rests on our ability to hold these people accountable in court. We resent recent moves by doctors and hospitals to limit our rights and blame us for their problems.
I have read a lot since this all happened to us. And what I don’t understand is why hospitals don’t try to do a better job. If you hurt someone, you need to ask yourself, what went wrong? But the hospitals and the nurses and the doctors just want to pretend that it didn’t happen. It is always someone else’s fault. I read the Leapfrog Group’s recommendations for hospital change. I also read that nothing has been done. Why?
Mandate that hospitals change procedure because no one there seems to be in charge. |
