I don’t know about you, but none of this inspires confidence in the government’s ability to provide quality healthcare to its citizens.
City-run hospitals faked records and covered up dozens of botched operations, deadly accidents, malpractice and other medical screwups, a Daily News investigation has found.
The coverups hid a trail of human suffering among patients who were maimed and relatives who were never told the truth about how their loved ones died or were injured unnecessarily.
A months-long probe found coverups at all 11 Health & Hospitals Corp. hospitals — the only option for millions of New Yorkers who cannot afford private medical centers.
From 2004 through September 2008, the state cited city hospitals 68 times for violating laws that require immediate reporting of “adverse events,” records show.
Each hospital — Bellevue, Coney Island, Elmhurst, Harlem, Jacobi, Kings County, Lincoln, Metropolitan, North Central Bronx, Queens and Woodhull — had at least one citation.
The law requires all New York hospitals to quickly report all serious medical mishaps to the state.
“There’s a tremendous lack of confidence in the reporting,” said Arthur Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers. “It matters because it is a way to understand where the safety problems are. . . . This identifies what goes wrong and where.”
Source: NY Daily News