I recall thinking a while back when this story was first reported how odd it seemed that no one in a hospital would assist a woman who was in obvious distress. Perhaps they had dealings with her before and thought her to be a chronic complainer and brushed her off as such. Unfortunately for the hospital and this poor woman it ended in her death.

According to 911 tapes now released even dispatchers would not send assistance to have Ms. Rodriguez moved to another facility to attain assistance.

It seems to me a whole lot of heads should roll over this matter. Regardless of what any nurse, doctor or dispatcher thought this woman was a human being in need of help. Here are a few of the quotes from todays article.

“I’m in the emergency room. My wife is dying and the nurses don’t want to help her out,” he said in Spanish through an interpreter.

“What’s wrong with her?” a dispatcher asked.

“She’s vomiting blood,” Prado said.

“OK, and why aren’t they helping her?” the dispatcher asked.

“They’re watching her there and they’re not doing anything. They’re just watching her,” Prado said

and:

Experts have said Rodriguez could have survived had she been treated early enough. The head of the county’s Department of Health Services, which oversees the facility, has called her death “inexcusable.”

or this

“What’s real confusing … was that she was at a medical facility,” Sheriff’s Capt. Steven M. Roller, who is in charge of the Century Station, which handled the calls, told the Times. “That poses some real quandaries.”

But perhaps the most telling is the last paragraph of the article:

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital formerly was known as Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. The name was changed as part of a reorganization after years of problems including patient deaths blamed on sloppy nursing care and hospital mismanagement that has threatened its federal funding.

Well, not only do I hope they lose their federal funding but they close the doors of this so called hospital forever. Then perhaps a few people should be charged with something..I am not a lawyer so I cannot say what, but the mere fact that this woman would have been alive today with proper care should leave someone answerable.

What a disgrace.