Kaiser Permanente's Negligent Treatment of an Elderly Patient Ends
in Tragedy -
Patient - Bernice Barthoff, Age 86.
On April 20, 2004, my mother, Bernice Barthoff became dizzy and fell on
her kitchen floor. Since her hip was intensely
painful after this fall, my sister, who lived with her called the paramedics.
The paramedics took her to the Kaiser Hospital emergency room, located
in Los Angeles, on Cadillac, where Bernice lay on a gurney in great pain
for several hours.
After Nice was finally examined and had X-Rays taken, she was informed
that she had no fractures but just a badly bruised hip. She was told
to get out of the bed and go home.
When she told the nurse that she was in too much pain to get out of the
bed, she was told that they needed the bed for another patient and she
was lifted into a wheelchair during which time she screamed due to her
agonizing painful hip.
The nurse told her that she could go home in the wheel chair and to take
Tylenol. The nurse said that the Tylenol would help lessen the pain
so Bernice could get out of the wheel chair in an hour or so.
My sister called a cab for the handicapped that could accommodate the wheel
chair and they went home. They arrived home at about 10:00 P.M.,
approximately seven hours after my mother fell.
Bernice spent the night sitting up in the wheel chair since Tylenol didn't
help.
On April 21, 2004, my sister called Kaiser to explain that Bernice could
not get out of the wheel chair, even to go to the bathroom. The clerical
person at Kaiser that she spoke with told her that she would have a social
worker call her back to help with home care.
Meanwhile, 24 to 48 hours after Bernice left the emergency department,
the radiologist at Kaiser made his final diagnosis of her X-Rays.
His diagnosis was that her hip actually was fractured. No one called
her at home to tell her this.
On April 22, 2004, Bernice was still unable to get out of the wheel chair,
was in great pain, and had to slide forward as much as she could in order
to use a bedpan. Since using the bedpan was so painful, she was barely
eating or drinking anything so she could avoid this as much as possible.
The social worker who was supposed to call, never called. My sister
called and ended up leaving another message for the social worker.
On April 23, 2004, when I drove out and saw that my mother was still in
the same wheel chair, in intense pain, and barely eating or drinking or
sleeping, I called Kaiser and explained her situation. I was transferred
to several different departments and repeated the story to each person
I spoke with until finally someone told me to get in touch with her primary
care physician.
My mother's primary care physician was finally summoned to the phone and
immediately checked the radiologist's report of the X-Rays taken in emergency
on April 20, 2005. He learned that the actual diagnosis was a fractured
hip and that she never should have been sent home from emergency.
He arranged for an ambulance for her and I asked him to arrange to just
have her admitted to a hospital room so she wouldn't have to go through
emergency again and was told that this was against procedure.
On April 23, 2004 at about 5:00 P.M. a second ambulance brought Bernice
back to emergency. After about two hours, she was examined again
and had to undergo more X-Rays. This process was extremely painful.
The attending physician in emergency explained to me that her hip fracture
was now much worse than it was on April 20th and I told him that she had
to slide back and forth on the wheel chair in order to use a bedpan for
the last three days and three nights.
About an hour later, while still in emergency, the orthopedic surgeon who
was assigned to do her hip surgery came to see her.
She was not placed in a hospital room until about 3:99 A.M. on April 24th
and was in a room right near the nurses' station where the telephone kept
her up for the rest of the night.
On April 24th in the afternoon, Bernice was taken into surgery. The
reparation of her hip took about four hours. She was conscious throughout
the surgery because a general anesthesia was not administered due to her
age. She had been given a spinal form of anesthesia. She died
shortly before the surgery was complete.
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