This is a guest post from Elizabeth at RockAByeParents.com
Imagine you’re a first time mom with a three month old little girl. You’re little girl gets very sick and spikes such a high fever that you have to go to the hospital. After a couple days the fever comes down and you breathe a sigh of relief because your precious little girl is going to be alright and you can go home. Things turn tragically wrong though and you go into complete shock when you see part of your little girl’s finger being cut off.
Sadly that is exactly what happened to Veronica Olguin last October. She took her three month old daughter Selena to Heart of Florida Regional Medical Center due to a high fever. When they had been cleared to go home the nurse went to cut off the IV and ended up cutting off part of Selena’s left pinky finger. They were able to find the missing part of the finger and airlifted Selena to Tampa General Hospital where Veronica was told that the nerves in Selena’s finger were so small that they couldn’t reattach it.
Veronica watched as her daughter lost part of her finger. She is still having nightmares from it, and she fears for what her daughter will have to go through when she’s older due to the loss of part of her finger. She is now suing the hospital for malpractice.
I’m shocked that such a thing could occur. Hours after first reading the article I still cannot understand how a nurse can go to cut some tape, and instead cuts off half a finger. Those had to be some strong and sharp scissors, and that nurse had to not be paying any attention to what she was doing. My heart truly goes out to the mother because I can’t imagine what she’s going through having watched the whole scene unfold. I think it would be hard for any mother to see someone hurt her child and not want to do bodily harm. To me the scariest part is that the hospital has allowed the nurse to return to work, although they won’t comment on whether or not she is working with patients.
Every day people put their lives, and the lives of their loved one, into the hands of trained medical professionals. Working in the medical field has to be a difficult job, but we have to know that those people will do their best to take care of us. If we can trust them than whom can we trust?
How would you feel if you were that mother?Here's the news story in case you want to read.
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Comments (42)
I can see the lawyers lining up after reading this. That hospital is going to be OWNED.
I swear, I would not have let her come at my child with scissors to remove an IV. She would have had to call security, the head nurse, or someone else to remove my child's IV, especially one that couldn't scream that she was hurting them.
This is absolutely unacceptable. Mom is very much in the right to be suing!
On another note, my mother lost half of her pinky when she was a little girl in a freak playground accident, and it grew back, nail and all. You can tell where it grew back only if she points it out.
maybe because i'm a medical professional too but i can't help but wonder if this nurse was chronically overworked and sleep-deprived... believe me, even the most competent and capable of people will do idiotic things when exhausted -and take a good-hearted ordinary joe or jane in the same situation and you've got a recipe for disaster.
what happened was awful but it isn't an isolated incident in any way- i think the fact that these stories crop up every so often screams for a hard look at how the medical system treats the people in charge of treating patients.
Sorry but that nurse needs to lose her job and never work in the industry again. There is no excuse for that.My heart goes out to that little angel and her family. I hate hearing about any sweet little innocent child being in any sort of pain like that.
What a freakin nightmare! I'd be horrified if that ever happened to my future child. I wouldn't take this lying down.
i think it's a long process for someone to get fired in the medical field, esp if it's a county hospital or something like that regardless of what they did (UNLESS they truly are not firing her..however even if its a long process they should put her on unpaid leave.)
i hope the baby will be ok and have a good recovery from the trauma she was put through. she deserves justice.
@haltija@xanga - thats true. my ex used to work in the OR but moved to central because in the OR it was so short staffed everyone was working doubles not just for a couple days but for weeks and sleep can become nonexistent when that happens.
@misslei11@xanga - I read it that way too!
Oh my goodness!! I don't know about worrying about what her daughter will have to go through but I know I would definitely have nightmares forever too!
@BI0chemical_EQUACI0N@xanga - Long process? My ass. Fire the bitch pronto! Tell her union to 'fuck off or be destroyed!' That's what I would do. What is wrong with this world when dumb bitches can get away with things like this?
@LegionOfLucifer@xanga - she should be fired. i dont think she is going to get away with it.
When I go any where with my daughter I make sure people know who they are taking care of and working for, Her and me! I would have raised hell and Def sued! Thats crap! That woman ruined a childs body!
@BI0chemical_EQUACI0N@xanga - She may. You never know. It depends upon how strong her union is, although they would be stupid to protect her. If they attempted to do so, people would demand an end to her union, thus affecting the lives of the entire nursing population.
@LegionOfLucifer@xanga - She might not have a union also, I think it's different everywhere cause i know in the east coast of the US (well in my state, I'm not sure if it's like that all the way down the coast) they don't have unions, but the north does. I know the west coast does. I like Unions, but I wouldn't support the idea of them trying to protect her cause that would make them stupid. The whole nursing population shouldn't have to go down for her mistake, so I hope she does get charged. I feel bad for the baby. But i do think that the whole hospital system should be looked at. At one hospital they have a woman working under a fake social security number (she is legal, but she used a fake social security number because she has been fired by a lot of hospitals for threats and harassment) yet she is still working there, starting fights with everyone, even her own fucking supervisor. It's ridiculous.
This article pissed me off the first time I read it and every time I read it. She shouldn't be allowed to work for any hospital again. Yes, people do make mistakes but this one is nearly as bad as causing death. Luckily the baby is so young that she'll learn to do everything without it and it wasn't her whole finger. People need to hear this story locally and completely stop going to the hospital altogether. From the apology they wrote to her, it doesn't sound like they are sorry truly. It sounded like a publicity stunt to get their reputation back up.
Eye for an eye, a finger for a finger!