Report Cites 'Failures' of Emergency Response in Reporter's Death
By DAVID STOUT
Published: June 16, 2006
WASHINGTON, June 16 — Firefighters, ambulance technicians, police officers and the nurses and doctors at a Washington hospital committed "multiple individual failures" in responding to the ultimately fatal beating of a journalist near his home last January, an official inquiry concluded today.
In a report that raised serious questions about emergency medical treatment in the nation's capital, the District of Columbia's inspector general said the initial response to the attack upon David E. Rosenbaum, a retired New York Times reporter, suggested "alarming levels of complacency and indifference."
A string of mistakes led to a collective and erroneous conclusion that Mr. Rosenbaum, who was found lying semi-conscious on a sidewalk the night of Jan. 6, was drunk when in fact he had been beaten and robbed, the inquiry found.
The assumption that Mr. Rosenbaum, 63, was intoxicated led ambulance technicians, police officers and the staff at Howard University Hospital to handle him with far less urgency than is necessary for a person with a head injury, the report said.
The report by the inspector general, Charles J. Willoughby, does not speculate on whether Mr. Rosenbaum might have survived if he had been treated better and faster. But it does say that, if left uncorrected, the problems laid bare by the case "could undermine the efficient and high quality delivery of emergency services" in Washington.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams called Mr. Willoughby's report "comprehensive and unflinching" and said today that reforms are already under way in the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. The hospital issued a statement that it had put in place "immediate and ongoing measures" to ensure "the highest standards of emergency care." >>>cont
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Published: June 16, 2006
WASHINGTON, June 16 — Firefighters, ambulance technicians, police officers and the nurses and doctors at a Washington hospital committed "multiple individual failures" in responding to the ultimately fatal beating of a journalist near his home last January, an official inquiry concluded today.
In a report that raised serious questions about emergency medical treatment in the nation's capital, the District of Columbia's inspector general said the initial response to the attack upon David E. Rosenbaum, a retired New York Times reporter, suggested "alarming levels of complacency and indifference."
A string of mistakes led to a collective and erroneous conclusion that Mr. Rosenbaum, who was found lying semi-conscious on a sidewalk the night of Jan. 6, was drunk when in fact he had been beaten and robbed, the inquiry found.
The assumption that Mr. Rosenbaum, 63, was intoxicated led ambulance technicians, police officers and the staff at Howard University Hospital to handle him with far less urgency than is necessary for a person with a head injury, the report said.
The report by the inspector general, Charles J. Willoughby, does not speculate on whether Mr. Rosenbaum might have survived if he had been treated better and faster. But it does say that, if left uncorrected, the problems laid bare by the case "could undermine the efficient and high quality delivery of emergency services" in Washington.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams called Mr. Willoughby's report "comprehensive and unflinching" and said today that reforms are already under way in the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. The hospital issued a statement that it had put in place "immediate and ongoing measures" to ensure "the highest standards of emergency care." >>>cont
Link
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:10 AM
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