Legal Review and Commentary: Misplaced dead body, $17,550 Nevada verdict
Legal Review & Commentary
Misplaced dead body, $17,550 Nevada verdict
News: A patient died of natural causes at the defendant hospital. However, when the funeral home came to collect the body, it took the hospital 2½ days to find the corpse. At that point, the decedent had to be cremated, which was against his religious preference. The man's children brought suit, and each received $5,850.
Background: The plaintiffs' father died of natural causes in the defendant hospital after undergoing an angioplasty to open narrowed coronary arteries. There were no issues regarding the appropriateness or adequacy of medical care and treatment he received. However, when the plaintiffs went to retrieve the body the next day, hospital officials told them that they could not find a record for their father in the computerized record system. The hospital instructed the plaintiffs to contact a local funeral home that typically handled deceased bodies from the hospital. When the funeral home told the plaintiffs that the corpse was not there, the plaintiffs demanded that the hospital find their father's body.
After 2½ days of searching, the decedent's body was located in the hospital's basement. After the man's death, hospital workers had placed the body on a gurney under a tabletop, enclosed by steel walls in an effort to hide the corpse while wheeling it through hallways. All that can be seen when the cart is wheeled down the hall is something that looks like a large serving cart with a floor-length sheet draped over its sides.
Unfortunately, a shift change caused a mix-up in keeping track of the body. The personnel leaving failed to tell the incoming workers where the decedent's body had been put. As a result, the hidden body sat on the gurney in a hallway for at least a day before it was moved to a warm, locked room in the basement.
The high temperature and lack of fresh air for 2½ days caused the body to decompose. It could be identified only by a tattoo on the decedent's arm. The plaintiffs contended that the body, in its present state, could not be embalmed or transported home to Utah. Instead, the remains had to be cremated, a process that was against the family's religious beliefs and that prevented a viewing of the body.
The hospital successfully argued that the misplacement of the body was partially a result of the plaintiffs' failure to make timely funeral arrangements. A verdict of $6,500 was awarded to each of the decedent's three children; however, since the children were found be 10% at fault, the award was reduced accordingly.
What this means to you: "One of the most difficult situations a family faces is the death of a loved one," says Cheryl Whiteman, RN, MSN, HCRM, clinical risk manager for Baycare Health System in Clearwater, FL. "Even when death is expected, the reality of their loss can be harsh and difficult to endure. One way societies deal with this loss is through the meaningful rituals, dictated by culture, religious beliefs, or both. In this situation, the family most likely experienced justifiable anger when the facility misplaced the body of their loved one. While the family may have contributed to the situation by not making funeral arrangements in a timely fashion, this is something that health care facilities should anticipate."
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations addresses the treatment of dying patients by noting that the "social, spiritual, and cultural variables that influence the expression and perception of grief by family members should be attended to."
Notes Whiteman, "The strain that illness and death causes often prevents people from being able to make decisions. This can be compounded if there are differences of opinions between family members."
"Whether articulated in a mission statement or understood through the tradition and basic premises of health care, the dignity and respect of the individual should be maintained at all times. Caring for the individual throughout the continuum should, indeed, include respectful attention to the remains of the deceased, including safely relinquishing the body to the appropriate funeral home or agency," emphasizes Whiteman.
"The risk manager should have been engaged in two processes, either directly or indirectly. First, a massive search should have been undertaken to locate the body in significantly less time than 2½ days. This search should have been similar to the process utilized in locating a missing patient. The entire hospital staff should have been alerted. Finding a decomposing body would be quite shocking to unsuspecting staff, visitors, or another patient," says Whiteman.
"And secondly, risk management should have been involved in dealing with the concerns of the family, including offers to assist with the financial burden of funeral expenses and perhaps family travel. Certainly financial expectations may escalate in view of the fact that religious beliefs, which often become paramount at such a time, were violated when the body had to be cremated. In the absence of extreme financial demands from the family, it seems that this issue should have been resolved outside of the courtroom. It would be expected that during the litigation process, the family would have many opportunities to express their outrage to others. The impact of this story would likely be passed through many, many people throughout the community, undermining the credibility of the health care facility," adds Whiteman.
"After locating the remains and rectifying the situation as much as possible, the risk manager would need to conduct an analysis of how the body happened to be 'lost' and to make appropriate process changes to prevent this situation from reoccurring," concludes Whiteman.
Since the incident, the hospital has instituted new policies for keeping track of the deceased. One new policy mandates that if relatives of the deceased cannot be notified within eight hours of the patient's death, the hospital must send the body to the mortuary in rotation. That information is logged into the computerized record system so that family members can locate their deceased loved ones when contacting the hospital. The second new policy requires workers to notify a nursing supervisor whenever a deceased person's name is deleted from the computer system. As a result, when family members call the hospital looking for information about their deceased loved ones, those calls can be routed to the appropriate supervisor, who can inform the relatives of the body's whereabouts. By implementing these new policies, the hospital in this case avoided any fines or penalties from the state health division.
Reference
• Clark County (NV) District Court, Case No. CV A446403.
A patient died of natural causes at the defendant hospital. However, when the funeral home came to collect the body, it took the hospital 2 1/2 days to find the corpse.Subscribe Now for Access
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