A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms
www.propublica.org
It took three ER visits and 20 hours before a hospital admitted Nevaeh Crain, 18, as her condition worsened. Doctors insisted on two ultrasounds to confirm “fetal demise.” She’s one of at least two Texas women who died under the state’s abortion ban.

The first hospital diagnosed her with strep throat without investigating her sharp abdominal cramps. At the second, she screened positive for sepsis, a life-threatening and fast-moving reaction to an infection, medical records show. But doctors said her six-month fetus had a heartbeat and that Crain was fine to leave.

Now on Crain’s third hospital visit, an obstetrician insisted on two ultrasounds to “confirm fetal demise,” a nurse wrote, before moving her to intensive care.

By then, more than two hours after her arrival, Crain’s blood pressure had plummeted and a nurse had noted that her lips were “blue and dusky.” Her organs began failing.

Hours later, she was dead.

[…]

Texas’s abortion ban threatens prison time for interventions that end a fetal heartbeat, whether the pregnancy is wanted or not. It includes exceptions for life-threatening conditions, but still, doctors told ProPublica that confusion and fear about the potential legal repercussions are changing the way their colleagues treat pregnant patients with complications.

  • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    Some said the first ER missed warning signs of infection that deserved attention. All said that the doctor at the second hospital should never have sent Crain home when her signs of sepsis hadn’t improved. And when she returned for the third time, all said there was no medical reason to make her wait for two ultrasounds before taking aggressive action to save her.

    Hawkins noted that Crain had strep and a urinary tract infection, wrote up a prescription and discharged her. Hawkins had missed infections before. Eight years earlier[…]

    This has nothing to do with abortion ban. This has everything to do with shitty doctors. None of this required or even remotely called for any abortion. And should that first doctor NOT have been allowed to keep their license from previous cases of being a bad doctor… A women and her child probably would be alive today.

    The other facility that examined the case was also in Texas. Clearly the “ban” doesn’t stop them.

    The well-resourced hospital is perceived to have more institutional support to provide abortions and miscarriage management, the doctor said. Other providers “are transferring those patients to our centers because, frankly, they don’t want to deal with them.”

    Can’t blame a “ban” if there’s places that can and do legally do it.

    This is shitty doctors/hospitals blaming to the law to skirt around hard cases that they simply don’t want to deal with.

    But because the delays and discharges occurred in an area of the hospital classified as an emergency room, lawyers said that Texas law set a much higher burden of proof: “willful and wanton negligence.”

    Now this is a shame… This is what TX should be fixing. Malpractice shouldn’t need a higher standard in an ER

    All in all, I’m not sure how this is related to the abortion “ban” in any way shape or form. So why is it in the article/OP at all? Especially since in this case, it would have been covered regardless…

    Section 170A.002 prohibits a person from performing, inducing, or attempting an abortion. There is an exception for situations in which the life or health of the pregnant patient is at risk. In order for the exception to apply, three factors must be met: A licensed physician must perform the abortion.
    The patient must have a life-threatening condition and be at risk of death or “substantial impairment of a major bodily function” if the abortion is not performed. “Substantial impairment of a major bodily function” is not defined in this chapter.
    The physician must try to save the life of the fetus unless this would increase the risk of the pregnant patient’s death or impairment.