Nurse Keeps Waiting For Doctor To Show Up While Unborn Child Suffers From Fetal Distress
Many complications can develop in the course of a pregnancy
. One problem that is particularly dangerous and requires quick action is fetal distress. Fetal distress frequently occurs because the unborn child's oxygen supply is cut off. Fetal distress is observed by monitoring the unborn baby's heart rate. Under specific circumstances, for example when the heart rate falls beneath a particular level, rapid action for instance an emergency C-section is needed. This article examines a reported lawsuit where the delay lasted roughly 2 hours.In this matter an expectant mother who had fallen was being admitted to a hospital to make sure that there was no trauma to her unborn baby. An ultrasound was conducted and showed no injury to the baby. The expectant mother continued to be worried that something was wrong and requested additional monitoring. The doctor indicated he would go to see the woman at a hospital where she was going to be transported so as to have other monitoring which the first hospital was not properly set up to carry out. After being transported to the second hospital, the woman was set up with a fetal heart rate monitor which was read by the nurse as indicating that the patient's unborn baby was in fetal distress. The second hospital and the nurse had been told that the woman's doctor had agreed to go to that hospital to handle the care of the patient and her unborn child. Even though evidently having known that the unborn child was in fetal distress, the nurse still concluded that she needed to wait for the obstetrician to handle the situation rather than take any measures on her own or informing an on-call physician.
The nurse continued to wait for the doctor to appear for two hours. It took the baby's heart rate reaching an alarmingly low level before the nurse at last advised one of the hospital physicians. When informed of the situation this doctor did not hesitate to do an emergency C-section. On doing the C-section the obstetrician found out that the baby had been deprived of oxygen (which accounted for the drop in the heart rate) because of a placental abruption.
The patient's physician went home instead of going to the hospital as he had said he would - effectively abandoning his patient and her baby and making him a defendant in the lawsuit. Because fetal distress requires immediate measures the nurse became the second defendant in the lawsuit by the parents because of her choice to hold off for the expectant mother obstetrician to appear as opposed to informing the in-house obstetrician until two hours afterward.
At birth the child was non-responsive. Despite the fact that the medical staff tried resuscitation measures they could not revive the baby. Here the law firm that represented the mother and father reported that the matter settled for $750,000. As this case demonstrates, a doctor who agrees to follow up on the care of the patient and does not might be liable and a nurse who does not notify a physician or take other appropriate measures right away upon noting symptoms of a major problem in the pregnancy might also be liable.
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