Coroner Jury Finds Woman's ER Waiting Room Death A Homicide
The tragedy of Ms. Beatrice Vance, who died in a ER waiting room chair of a heart attack, is criminal. A coroner's jury declared that the death is a homicide, resulting from gross deviations in the standard of care. The woman sat in the ER for two hours complaining of classic heart attack symptoms, but was found slumped over dead by the time the nurses got to her.
Clearly this sort of tragedy should never happen. However I would expect the same doctors and groups who successfully lobbied the passing of the damage caps in Springfield last year, to look for further liability protection from criminal lawsuits. Why not? If doctors and insurance groups want protection from civil liability, why not criminal liability also? Surely the same arguments reform groups used to pass the civil protections would apply to criminal protections: it would lower insurance premiums for doctors and hospitals.
Of course this idea is ridiculous, but it is to emphasize the fact that attention needs to by put more on patient safety and less on protecting negligent doctors and hospitals and from civil (or even criminal) liability.