Should not have been released.

This is in Oregon. My mother was in the hospital for fatally high potassium levels. She had terminal colon cancer. The hospital released her without any discharge medications or instructions as to how to do continued care. They actually refused to keep her any longer. We took her to her doctors clinic office about 70 miles away and he came outside and looked at her and immediately had her readmitted to a different hospital. He said that what the first hospital did was highly inhumane as well as highly illegal. She was admitted to this new hospital where she died about one week later.

Since she was already terminally ill, would we be eligible for compensation from the first hospital's negligence? Thank you in advance for your help in this manner.

Dear KrisKay;

My heart goes out to you. There's probably no worse feeling than knowing that a loved one is terminally ill. Then, on top of that, the medical professionals who are supposed to be compassionate, and caring, pull a stunt like this one.

What reason did the hospital give for discharging your mother? Regardless of their excuse, what they have done is below the standard of care, and therefore constitutes an act of medical malpractice.

Find a good malpractice attorney in your area and make an appointment. The statute of limitations is probably 2 years from the date of the incident, so keep that in mind.

Your mothers condition at the time of the incident should not have any impact on your claim. In fact, since she was terminal, she obviously required skilled care, and that will probably help your case.

Good luck to you and God bless you.

Pam

Dear Pam,

Thank you so much for your kind words. They really do help at a time like this.

I will have to get with my sister as to why she was released. She is the one that actually took my mom out of there. I do know that she went in on a Thursday and the doctor on call wanted her to be released the next day. I think because she was terminal and he thought that there was nothing he could do for her. On that next day (Friday), there was another doctor on call and he went ahead and let her stay for the weekend. My mom was not ready to go home. My mom does not like hospitals at all and in fact, until she got sick last year, I do not ever remember her being in one. So, for her to say that she did not want to go home or that she was not ready, it meant she was not ready.

Anyway, on the next Monday, the doctor that was on call when she first went in, was back on duty and he would not keep her. He said that he had talked to her primary care provider (the one my sister took her to after she left the hospital) and that he agreed. Well, my mom's doctor had not agreed. He had not even talked to him.

I know that we would have lost my mom anyway, but I think they had a big hand in speeding up the process. I think we will go and talk to someone. I really do not want that hospital to be able to keep doing this. In fact, this is the same hospital my sister-in-law was in when she passed away. That is another story and probably some negligence there as well.

Again, thank you for your reply and your advise. I will try to come in here again and let you know what happened. Are we allowed to do that? Do you visit this site a lot? I guess I am not sure how this works. Maybe we are only supposed to post our question and then reply to the answer and that is it. I don't know. One way to clear this up is if you will post back to me again and then I will know. If I do not hear from you, I will assume that this is not the way this site works. Take care.