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Anyone read about this?
Cliffs at bottom
For the lazy crowd:
Two couples had a baby go in for a circumcision around the same time, some volunteers working at the hospital put the babies back in the wrong crib. Apparently when the babies were brought to the parents and "matched" the numbers on the wristbands, the nurse failed to notice the numbers obviously didn't match up.
Also, the hospital recommended counseling because of their fuck up, but later on decided they weren't going to cover the bill for it.
Cliffs at bottom
Kevin and Susan Dunagan of Plano thought their baby boy, born just 36 hours earlier, was a bit different after his circumcision.
They rationalized that he’d been through a great deal, that he hadn’t eaten for many hours and that his lips might be swollen as a reaction to the local anesthesia.
They didn’t know how different he actually was until three hours later — when a worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Plano discovered he was not their son.
The hospital had switched babies.
It was early on Christmas Eve when the infants both went to be circumcised at roughly the same time. Their code numbers — 27988 and 27980 — were similar. They were placed in the wrong cribs in the nursery when they came back from the surgeries.
A volunteer worker brought the baby that was in the Dunagan crib, checking the bracelets on both the boy and mother to verify a match. A nurse then showed the circumcision and told the parents how to properly care for it.
The Dunagans spent the next few hours in the fog of new parenthood. Susan nursed the baby, while the pair comforted the tiny boy. They noticed that he seemed to have fuller lips, but the infant was still brand new to them. Any differences were easily explained away.
It wasn’t until a hospital worker came in to perform a hearing test, typed in the baby’s bracelet code and asked if the couple’s last name was different from their son’s that they realized the full extent of what had happened.
“She said this was not our baby,” said Kevin Dunagan.
The next few minutes were filled with terror as the hospital searched for their son. The Dunagans’ son was quickly located with the other baby’s family, who also thought they had the correct newborn because of the bracelet procedures.
“After a few minutes, the other family finally believed and took their son back,” Dunagan said.
“They brought us a circumcised baby and they checked the bracelet. You just think it’s going to be your child. You don’t think something like this is really possible today. You think it’s something in a movie or 30 years ago or something.”
Baby switches are rare outside of novels and TV movies. Of the millions of births each year, only a handful of switches have ever been confirmed. Summary data reported voluntarily by hospitals to the Joint Commission shows that only two infants were discharged to the wrong families since 2004.
While these boys never left the hospital, they did spend time with the other families. Susan had breastfed the infant she cared for and his family asked that she be tested for communicable diseases. She was asked to give a blood sample, which the Dunagans understood and did not mind offering.
But she was also asked to give up a sizable amount of the breast milk she was producing. That left her own son without breast milk for additional feedings during the period at the beginning of lactation when a mother produces colostrum, a breast milk nutrient so rich with antibodies that it is nicknamed “liquid gold.”
“They indicated that we would not be allowed to leave until they got their sample. Of course, this added more stress, pain,” said Kevin Dunagan.
The couple wound up having several meetings with hospital administrators, who apologized for the switch. Some workers at Presbyterian indicated that babies had been carried to the wrong room previously but had never been handed over to the wrong people.
“It turns out that the people they have taking and bringing back the babies from the nursery were volunteers and the man that did our babies was using a magnifying glass to read the codes on the bracelets,” said Dunagan.
The hospital suggested that the distraught couple get counseling to help them accept that they did recognize their newborn. Administrators also said that the mother and baby’s bills would be held as the hospital looked into waiving their costs.
But weeks passed and the couple wound up hearing a different story. An administrator in charge of approving the payments let them know that their counseling wouldn’t be covered. Then a bill arrived for Susan’s care totaling about $2,400. It was not obvious whether the couple was billed for the breast milk testing and blood work done after the error.
Dunagan called the hospital to check what was going on and was told no “offer” would be made.
“It seems that the hospital may be more concerned with collecting payments than keeping track of babies,” Kevin Dunagan said in an email to Problem Solver asking for help. “Our main goal of speaking with the hospital was to ensure that this never happens to anyone else again, and it is becoming hard to believe that the hospital is taking the appropriate steps given their reaction.”
Russell Colling, a health care security consultant who has written seven books on the subject, including two for the Joint Commission, said that it is highly unusual for a hospital to allow volunteers to transport babies from the nursery.
“In fact, I’ve never seen that in my 45 years,” he said. “It’s a bad situation that could have gone worse. Paying for counseling is an appropriate gesture, but they can’t even make that happen after they fouled up. That’s a double error.”
Since the baby boys did not leave the hospital with the wrong families, the incident is not something that the hospital would have to report to either state or federal regulators. Still, it is something the state would investigate, according to Texas Department of State Health Services spokesman Chris Van Deusen.
“We would encourage the parents to file a complaint to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Van Deusen.
The Dunagans heard from the hospital about 12 hours after I called. They were assured that bills for both mother and son were being waived and that counseling will be paid for by Presbyterian Plano. It was all a “misunderstanding,” Dunagan said he was told.
The hospital declined to give details, but it did issue a statement to Problem Solver.
“We are aware of his concerns and we’ve been working with him. To the best of our knowledge we haven’t had a situation like this before. We have made minor changes to our procedures after this situation,” it reads.
Kevin Dunagan said he understands that volunteers will no longer handle babies at the hospital. He also said that he and his wife are beginning to accept what happened but are still a long way from being OK with it.
“It messes with us,” he said. “How did we not know? You just don’t think it’s possible. We relied on the hospital to do its job.”
They rationalized that he’d been through a great deal, that he hadn’t eaten for many hours and that his lips might be swollen as a reaction to the local anesthesia.
They didn’t know how different he actually was until three hours later — when a worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Plano discovered he was not their son.
The hospital had switched babies.
It was early on Christmas Eve when the infants both went to be circumcised at roughly the same time. Their code numbers — 27988 and 27980 — were similar. They were placed in the wrong cribs in the nursery when they came back from the surgeries.
A volunteer worker brought the baby that was in the Dunagan crib, checking the bracelets on both the boy and mother to verify a match. A nurse then showed the circumcision and told the parents how to properly care for it.
The Dunagans spent the next few hours in the fog of new parenthood. Susan nursed the baby, while the pair comforted the tiny boy. They noticed that he seemed to have fuller lips, but the infant was still brand new to them. Any differences were easily explained away.
It wasn’t until a hospital worker came in to perform a hearing test, typed in the baby’s bracelet code and asked if the couple’s last name was different from their son’s that they realized the full extent of what had happened.
“She said this was not our baby,” said Kevin Dunagan.
The next few minutes were filled with terror as the hospital searched for their son. The Dunagans’ son was quickly located with the other baby’s family, who also thought they had the correct newborn because of the bracelet procedures.
“After a few minutes, the other family finally believed and took their son back,” Dunagan said.
“They brought us a circumcised baby and they checked the bracelet. You just think it’s going to be your child. You don’t think something like this is really possible today. You think it’s something in a movie or 30 years ago or something.”
Baby switches are rare outside of novels and TV movies. Of the millions of births each year, only a handful of switches have ever been confirmed. Summary data reported voluntarily by hospitals to the Joint Commission shows that only two infants were discharged to the wrong families since 2004.
While these boys never left the hospital, they did spend time with the other families. Susan had breastfed the infant she cared for and his family asked that she be tested for communicable diseases. She was asked to give a blood sample, which the Dunagans understood and did not mind offering.
But she was also asked to give up a sizable amount of the breast milk she was producing. That left her own son without breast milk for additional feedings during the period at the beginning of lactation when a mother produces colostrum, a breast milk nutrient so rich with antibodies that it is nicknamed “liquid gold.”
“They indicated that we would not be allowed to leave until they got their sample. Of course, this added more stress, pain,” said Kevin Dunagan.
The couple wound up having several meetings with hospital administrators, who apologized for the switch. Some workers at Presbyterian indicated that babies had been carried to the wrong room previously but had never been handed over to the wrong people.
“It turns out that the people they have taking and bringing back the babies from the nursery were volunteers and the man that did our babies was using a magnifying glass to read the codes on the bracelets,” said Dunagan.
The hospital suggested that the distraught couple get counseling to help them accept that they did recognize their newborn. Administrators also said that the mother and baby’s bills would be held as the hospital looked into waiving their costs.
But weeks passed and the couple wound up hearing a different story. An administrator in charge of approving the payments let them know that their counseling wouldn’t be covered. Then a bill arrived for Susan’s care totaling about $2,400. It was not obvious whether the couple was billed for the breast milk testing and blood work done after the error.
Dunagan called the hospital to check what was going on and was told no “offer” would be made.
“It seems that the hospital may be more concerned with collecting payments than keeping track of babies,” Kevin Dunagan said in an email to Problem Solver asking for help. “Our main goal of speaking with the hospital was to ensure that this never happens to anyone else again, and it is becoming hard to believe that the hospital is taking the appropriate steps given their reaction.”
Russell Colling, a health care security consultant who has written seven books on the subject, including two for the Joint Commission, said that it is highly unusual for a hospital to allow volunteers to transport babies from the nursery.
“In fact, I’ve never seen that in my 45 years,” he said. “It’s a bad situation that could have gone worse. Paying for counseling is an appropriate gesture, but they can’t even make that happen after they fouled up. That’s a double error.”
Since the baby boys did not leave the hospital with the wrong families, the incident is not something that the hospital would have to report to either state or federal regulators. Still, it is something the state would investigate, according to Texas Department of State Health Services spokesman Chris Van Deusen.
“We would encourage the parents to file a complaint to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Van Deusen.
The Dunagans heard from the hospital about 12 hours after I called. They were assured that bills for both mother and son were being waived and that counseling will be paid for by Presbyterian Plano. It was all a “misunderstanding,” Dunagan said he was told.
The hospital declined to give details, but it did issue a statement to Problem Solver.
“We are aware of his concerns and we’ve been working with him. To the best of our knowledge we haven’t had a situation like this before. We have made minor changes to our procedures after this situation,” it reads.
Kevin Dunagan said he understands that volunteers will no longer handle babies at the hospital. He also said that he and his wife are beginning to accept what happened but are still a long way from being OK with it.
“It messes with us,” he said. “How did we not know? You just don’t think it’s possible. We relied on the hospital to do its job.”
Two couples had a baby go in for a circumcision around the same time, some volunteers working at the hospital put the babies back in the wrong crib. Apparently when the babies were brought to the parents and "matched" the numbers on the wristbands, the nurse failed to notice the numbers obviously didn't match up.
Also, the hospital recommended counseling because of their fuck up, but later on decided they weren't going to cover the bill for it.
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