Totally off-track for this site and on the other side of the country … but maddening nonetheless;
An event occurred in California at an independent living facility … you be the judge:
CPR refusal case probed in Bakersfield
Police were investigating Monday whether there was any criminal wrongdoing in the handling of a health emergency at an independent living facility where a woman died after a nurse refused to provide CPR.
An official at Glenwood Gardens, a sprawling, gated facility in Bakersfield, defended the nurse, saying she had followed policy in dealing with the 87-year-old woman who collapsed in a dining room.
A police dispatcher who fielded the 911 call was told the woman appeared to have a heart problem and was barely breathing. Police immediately routed the call to the Fire Department, where a dispatcher pleaded with a nurse at the home to perform CPR on the woman.
The nurse refused, saying one of the facility’s policies prevented her from doing CPR, according to an audio recording of the call.
Bakersfield Police spokeswoman Michaela Beard said the department is looking into the incident.
An unidentified woman made the Feb. 26 call, and asked for paramedics to be sent to help the woman. Later, a woman who identified herself as a nurse got on the phone and told dispatcher Tracey Halvorson she was not permitted to do CPR on the woman.
Halvorson urged the nurse to start CPR. “I understand if your boss is telling you, you can’t do it,” the dispatcher said. “But … as a human being … you know, is there anybody that’s willing to help this lady and not let her die?”
“Not at this time,” the nurse answered.
During the 7-minute, 16-second call, Halvorson assured the nurse that Glenwood couldn’t be sued if anything went wrong with CPR.
Halvorson is an experienced dispatcher and has worked for the county center for at least a decade, Kern County Fire Department Deputy Chief Michael Miller said.
Firefighters and ambulance personnel arrived at the facility seven minutes after the call came in, Miller said. The county does not know who made the call, he added.
The woman had no pulse and wasn’t breathing, Fire Department spokesman Anthony Galagaza added. Crews started CPR and loaded her onto a gurney. She was later declared dead at a hospital.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/CPR-refusal-case-probed-in-Bakersfield-4328014.php#ixzz2Mn1tn47m
Is the nurse negligent … would the same thing happen here?
