If there was ever a needless tragedy, certainly the case of Mychelle Williams was just that. For those of you who have seen Sicko, no doubt you were moved by her story. You had to be. I doubt even the most heartless among us could walk away from that story without feeling a sense of loss. No one in Moore’s film deserves more empathy than Dawnelle Keys, Mychelle’s mother. It’s a sad fact of life that we are all destined to lose loved ones somewhere along the way, but there’s something about the death of a child that transcends all other losses. Even years after Mychelle died, you can still see sorrow in Dawnelle Keys.
I suppose Michael Moore has done more despicable things in his life than to misrepresent the Mychelle Williams story in Sicko, but I’ll be damn if I can think of one. For those people who continue to support the concept that Mike exaggerates or distorts facts for a higher purpose, try to justisfy this one. This is the real story of Mychelle Williams.
In May of 1993, Ms. Keys (whose name was Dawnelle Barris at the time) picked up her 18-month old daughter, Mychelle Williams, from day care. She went directly to her mother’s house where she left Mychelle so she could run errands. When she returned, her daughter was ill. Keys, a trained paramedic, soon realized how sick Mychelle was and called an ambulance. Her temperature was about 104 degrees F. Mychelle was transported to the nearest hospital, Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. There, Dr. Trach Phoung Dang attended her giving the child intravenous liquids for dehydration and medication to reduce her fever which had soared to 106.6 degrees F. Dr. Dang correctly suspected Sepsis, which is a very serious condition requiring immediate treatment with antibiotics, was the cause of the child’s illness. He also knew the risk of death is high with this condition.
Over the course of the next two and a half hours, Mychelle’s condition worsened . . . to the point she had a seizure. Meanwhile, Dawnelle Keys became so upset with the situation, security staff had to escort her from King/Drew Hospital. Finally, after almost 4 hours of delay, Mychelle was transported to another hospital owned and operated by Kaiser. She died a few minutes after arrival.
Some of you familiar with this story will wonder why I failed to mention that this family was insured by the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and why I failed to mention Kaiser allegedly denied payment for the tests and antibiotics necessary to treat Mychelle. There are two reasons for this omission. First, Kaiser did not deny coverage for medical treatment. Second, it was the responsibility of King/Drew to run those test and administer antibiotics if necessary regardless of consideration of payment. Why? Because there was a strong indication that Mychelle’s condition was due to Sepsis.
There is a Federal Law in this country that no one can be denied treatment at any emergency room, even if they cannot pay. It’s called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA for short (Section 1395dd, title 42 of the U.S. Code) which clearly states that no hospital can “dump” a patient in need of treatment. That’s exactly why a court ruled against the County of Los Angeles who owns King/Drew Hospital. They did not provide medical treatment necessary to assure, within reasonable probability, that no material deterioration of Mychelle’s condition was likely to result from or occur during the transfer of a patient to another hospital.
Simply put, King/Drew hospital should have run the test necessary to confirm or rule out Dr. Dang’s suspicions of Sepsis. By waiting, Mychelle passed the critical point of no return. It did not matter what health care insurance plan she had, nor did it matter what conditions that plan placed on members. Mychelle Williams was under their care, and it was their responsibility to treat her.
This is a case of medical malpractice . . . period . . . end of story. That is exactly what the court said. The responsibility assigned by the court for compensation was 75% King/Drew Hospital, a government run institution, and 25% Kaiser’s hospital, not the Kaiser Permanente Hospital Plan as Moore would have you believe. The proof is in the documents of a ruling by the Supreme Court of California, that being Dawnelle Barris versus the County of Los Angeles.
I have yet to figure out what higher purpose Moore’s distortion of these facts serves. If he’s trying to discredit HMOs by bringing up a case of government medical malpractice, he just shot himself in the foot. How is this going to improve our health care system? And how in the world does any of this justify lying about a small child’s tragic death?
I suppose Mike thinks we should model our health care system on a hospital owned and operated by Los Angeles County, namely King/Drew. After all, Moore thinks it’s for the greater good, you know.
P.S. This comes from Merck’s online medical library:
Sepsis is very serious, and the risk of death is high. Sepsis requires immediate treatment with antibiotics—even if test results confirming the diagnosis are not yet available.
Update by JimK:
I don’t want to lessen this amazing post by adding too much to it, but I thought that people would like to see a summary of the legal decision. It’s fairly obvious at this point that Moore doesn’t want you to know the full details of this case, as they actually refute his position that the government should be in charge of your health and your life. King/Drew violated section 1395dd of title 42 of the United States Code, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, when they decided to acquiesce to Kaiser’s request not to do the blood tests immediately. This was not a case of mismanagement. The Kaiser doctor was not on the scene and should not have been taken as the last word in medical care. Especially when accepting his over-the-phone instructions violated the law. This was medical malpractice, from a government-run hospital.
Less...
RSS (Subscribe)
