Learning about the unexpected death of a loved one is certainly a devastating experience for families, but the death of a loved one is especially tragic when a child is involved. After doctors at a Chicago hospital told the parents of a 7-year-old boy on Feb. 18 that the child could not be resuscitated, the parents said that they refused to accept the news. However, the child’s parents had a good reason not to believe hospital staff.
Despite the great responsibility medical professionals have to treat each patient as if his or her health conditions are completely unique, doctors are still susceptible to making serious or fatal mistakes when they make assumptions about one’s health without a thorough exam or analysis. This form ofmedical malpractice can cause a delay in treatment or a misdiagnosis, which can result in a patient suffering further health complications or injuries. Medical negligence not only affects a patient, but the victim’s family can also suffer undue emotional pain and harm.
Last week, the parents of the boy were told by doctors at Mercy Hospital that their son was dead. Doctors claimed that they were unable to resuscitate the boy and advised the parents to say goodbye to their son because he had suffered cardiac arrest and would not live.
However, the boy’s mother said that her son only looked as if he was sleeping and the father noticed that his son’s body was still warm and that his chest was moving as if he was still breathing. The parents brought this to the attention of hospital staff, but they were told that the boy’s condition was just a reaction to the medication he had been given during the attempts to save his life.
With persistence, the parents requested that hospital staff continue to monitor their son, believing he was still alive. Several hours later, an ultrasound showed that the boy’s heart was still beating and a pulse was found. After being told that their child was dead, the boy was later transferred to another Chicago hospital to recover from his cardiac arrest and near death.
Hospital staff called the incident a miracle, but the parents assert that their child was never dead. Instead, hospital staff failed to employ all efforts to immediately resuscitate the child, the parents claim.
Source: ABC 7 News, “Heartbeat, pulse found after boy pronounced dead,” Sarah Schulte, Feb. 22, 2012
