Life in the public eye…

Posted by Patrick Lickiss on May 14, 2010 in Current Events, Legal | 2 comments

Putnam County settles wrongful death suit against EMS Squad for $85k

This suit was settled following a 2006 call in which two paramedics responded to a call for a 28 year old asthmatic experiencing shortness of breath.  The suit, filed by the patient’s sister alleged that the responders did not provide timely assessment and care, walked the patient down two flights of stairs and “acted as if it was a bother or nuisance to them to have to respond to the emergency call.”

After being transported to the emergency room, the patient died of acute respiratory failure.

The issues with this call are two fold:

First there is the clinical aspect.  Without having read testimony and court documents, it seems likely based on the allegation of lack of timely assessment and treatment, that the responders either did not treat the patient, waited too long to treat the patient or were not aggressive enough with their treatment.  In all likelihood, it is probably a combination of the latter two events.

More shocking, however, is the fact that the patient was walked down two flights of stairs.  I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s never appropriate to walk a respiratory patient down stairs.  I’m sure there are a few situations floating around when it might be warranted, but those are definitely few and far between.  Ultimately, the decision to walk a respiratory patient to the gurney means either laziness on the part of responders or an inability to determine a patient’s severity.  I honestly don’t know which possibility is more frightening.

The second issue of this call is the customer service aspect.  In his editorial note about the case, Art Hsieh brings up a great point: “Patients remember kindness, courtesy and respect — and they remember inappropriate behavior even more.” Everyone reading this can probably recall a time when they provided excellent patient care but may have not provided excellent customer service.  When complaints come in they often do not relate to clinical care, but to interpersonal conflicts.

At the end of the day, no matter how we act towards our patients on scene, we still have a legal obligation to transport them to the hospital.  That being the case, doesn’t it just make more sense to treat them with kindness and respect?  It’s certainly a lot less stressful for the crew members to just be polite.  Now don’t think I’m getting up on my high horse, I’m certainly not saying that I’ve never rolled my eyes on scene or acted annoyed, what I’m asking is, what does it really accomplish?

Remember that we are very much in the public eye while doing our jobs.  It’s important to remember that we don’t just treat the patient’s medical complaint, we ultimately treat the whole patient.  Cases like this and the large settlement associated should serve as a wake-up to EMS practitioners everywhere.