Beaumont Hospital Staffers Horrified After Patient Dies During Routine Colonoscopy

[TexasTowelie]

The inevitable tragedy Beaumont Health chairman John Lewis and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel were warned about occurred last Thursday in the early afternoon: A 51-year-old man walked into the colonoscopy suite at Beaumont’s flagship Royal Oak hospital at 13 and Woodward thinking he’d be undergoing a routine screening and heading home a few hours later.

Instead, the patient, the sole caregiver for his elderly mother, wound up in Beaumont’s basement morgue.

Veteran employees at Beaumont's Royal Oak campus are both angered and saddened by the death, which they say was an expected medical catastrophe resulting from COO Carolyn Wilson’s money-saving decision last April to award Texas-based NorthStar Anesthesia, a controversial low-cost outsourcing firm, a contract to manage anesthesiology services at the flagship hospital and previously one of the busiest surgical centers in the country.
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NorthStar’s Royal Oak contract began Jan. 1. The company is controlled by The Cranmere Group, whose previous CEO Jeffrey Zients resigned in December to co-head President Biden’s transition team and will oversee the administration’s Covid response.

Read more: https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/27205/starkman_beaumont_hospital_staffers_horrified_after_patient_dies_during_routine_colonoscopy

[intrepidity]

1. Very poorly written article, I can't even finish reading it

A tragedy all around.

According to multiple sources, the colonoscopy patient weighed about 300 pounds and had obstructive sleep apnea. Due to the patient’s weight, a decision was made to intubate him, which was handled by the CRNA from Beaumont Dearborn.

When the breathing tube was removed, the patient began to thrash around and then stopped breathing. The visiting NorthStar anesthesiologist was called and worked with the CRNA to reintubate the patient. When that procedure failed, they called for an emergency team to revive the patient. By then, he’d been without a pulse for 30 minutes. The team arrived too late.

[Mike 03]

2. Upsetting article, to say the least. From it:

Dangers of Speaking Up

Speaking up about patient safety issues at Beaumont can be hazardous and humiliating. Brian Berman, Beaumont’s former head of pediatrics, was fired and escorted from Beaumont’s Royal Oak building by hospital president Nancy Susick after he objected to cutbacks that he said would harm patient care.

According to Robert Safian, a Harvard-trained cardiologist who sent a blistering letter about Fox and his deputies to Beaumont’s directors and trustees, another physician was fired for protesting Berman’s firing. Safian also disclosed that a Beaumont emergency room doctor was fired for protesting cutbacks.

My favorite naturopath, who practices in Michigan, has been critical of Beaumont for years. He always says there are excellent doctors there, but that systemically it suffers from dangerous issues.

[UpInArms]

3. Hard to tell who is more at fault here ... Beaumont or Northstar

Federal prosecutors this month charged two former Beaumont employees with stealing medical devices from the hospital and selling them via the internet for more than $560,000. A healthcare industry expert told me the theft speaks poorly of Beaumont’s internal controls, and that replacement costs for the stolen equipment were likely considerably more than the devices sold for in the black market.

Security and IT aren’t Beaumont’s strong suits. The hospital network suffered two data breaches within months last summer. Beaumont’s website to book Covid vaccines also crashed.

[3Hotdogs]

5. Stealing $1/2 million of supplies.... Walter White's high school had better accounting procedures.

[quickesst]

4. between dealing with ulcerative colitis...

.... from 1978 until approximately 1986, and routine exams since, I have gone through more colonoscopies than I can remember. I have always been given a mild relaxant in order to tolerate discomfort, but not one single time have I ever been put under for this procedure. During my last couple of routine procedures, and being over 65 years old, my somewhat excessive weight was never a consideration in breaking that routine. I believe that if I was family, I would be consulting a lawyer.