Paging Doctor Woe!
Mike Smith
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Let’s play a game. I’ll start. What do infectious waste, MRSA, unions, data entry errors, and bees all have in common?
Nothing good, I’ll tell you that. They’re all part of a continuing series of confusing, frustrating, and disgusting setbacks that have rocked the New Mexico medical community in recent weeks.
Ha ha. Isn’t this fun?
The New Mexico Environment Department has issued an administrative compliance order to the Los Alamos Medical Center and levied a fine of $51,250 against the facility. At issue is the fact that the medical center violated Solid Waste Management Regulations by disposing of infectious waste at the Los Alamos County Landfill in 2006 and 2007.
Better a museum than the dump, no?
According to a NMED press release,
The violations stem from waste screening inspections that determined the hospital disposed of infectious waste -- including two human placentas with attached umbilical cords, vials of blood and needles.
In addition,
The department’s Solid Waste Bureau determined during three waste screening inspections between October and December 2006 and in January 2007 that three truckloads from the hospital contained infectious waste. That waste, which was contaminated or saturated with blood or bloody liquids, also included gauze, bedding, plastic tubing and a vacuum pump.
So, you know, that’s not good. Let’s certainly hope that better procedures are in place at the Roosevelt General Hospital, where MRSA infections are on the rise. These staph infections, resistant to penicillin and related antibiotics, pose a risk to those working in healthcare facilities or with compromised immune systems. Whether it’s because of the local agricultural population (touching all that manure and whatnot), or some other reason, you may or may not take comfort in knowing
[Director of Patient Care Gayle] Richerson said the hospital is working on improved hand hygiene as its first line of defense. She said monitoring programs have shown increased compliance on hand washing policy among staff.
Whew, that was a close one. But I think we can all rest well, knowing that our well being is protected by such extraordinary safeguards as “increased compliance on hand washing policy.”
Not all threats to our medical care facilities are infectious in nature. For Alta Vista Regional Hospital in Las Vegas, the menace has come FROM WITHIN. In response to a complaint filed by District 1199 of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, the private hospital has been ordered to bargain with a union by the National Labor Relations Board. Not only that, but they must also post a notice describing employees’ rights and informing them that the hospital has broken federal labor law. Ouch!
Apparently, the union was approved by a large majority of the hospital’s workers last summer, but because the election “started a minute late and…some Spanish speaking employees didn't understand what they were voting on,” the whole thing was bogus in the eyes of hospital administration. The objections were overruled in March, but the hospital has maintained its refusal to negotiate.
Alta Vista now plans to contest the NLRB’s ruling in court. With their obvious sensitivity to their employees’ desires, they have no idea why hospital workers can’t just talk to their superiors without a third-party organization. They also claim that a union would create discord, thus disturbing the current utopian working environment.
New Mexico's neurosurgical future?
The gubmint has also been messing with southern New Mexico’s only neurosurgeon, Dr. Brett R. Henderson of Southern New Mexico Neurosurgery, LLC. It seems that he was nearly forced to close his practice in Las Cruces and relocate after Medicare failed to pay him in more than 50 days for clients he’d treated. With 85 to 90 percent of his clients using Medicare to pay, this meant he was trying to run a business with almost no money coming in.
According to Erik Khan, who handles the practices business operations, the problem
stemmed from data entry error on the part of a contracted company, TrailBlazer Health Enterprises, that handles payment to doctors on behalf of the federal government. In January, Henderson's practice, along with physicians across the country, was assigned a new type of identifying number.
Khan said Henderson's number was entered incorrectly. But the problem didn't become apparent until several weeks ago, when the new numbers were put into use for the first time.
Though partial payment from Medicare has finally been received by Henderson’s practice, the exasperating experience has left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. Thanks to someone’s typo, New Mexico nearly lost its only practicing neurosurgeon south of Albuquerque. Tremble before the power of the data entry clerk!
And speaking of small things making big news--New Mexico’s apian nightmare, previously reported right here by Nicholas Rutkaus, continues.
That’s right, a colony of bees was discovered by staff members at Portales Medical Clinic last week. The entrance, along with the front portion of the office, was closed off at about 8 a.m. on July 21st. Because of the possibility that the bees were Africanized, general terror swept the facility.
Encounters with a swarm of Africanized bees can be deadly, according to officials
the Portales News-Tribune helpfully, and not very specifically, informs us.
How did the clinic deal with this frightening situation? Did they have emergency procedures in place? Were they prepared to deal with the potential chaos? Did they have a plan?
Indeed they did.
Clinic office manager Leisha Beickham said patients of the clinic were contacted Monday morning and told of the situation. The patients were asked to use a side entrance.
Lewis Hightower, owner of the company that eliminated the bee menace, told the Portales News-Tribune,
There is a 99 percent chance that these bees are collecting honey looking to make a home and will be docile.
So, although no one had any particular reason to think these bees were Africanized or likely to be much of a danger to anyone, the colony was destroyed. As one astute commenter on the newspaper’s website pointed out, the recent worldwide reduction of the bee population, critical to agriculture, was apparently not a concern.
Too bad this kind of comprehensive rigor can’t be applied to the elimination of medical waste or MRSA. Or employee rights. But the bees. We're safe from the bees.
—Lisa Barrow
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Reader Comments (1)
One thing I would like to see is more money directed at preventative medicine rather than spending the bulk of money on fixing people after they have let their health decline to such a point that they need surgery after surgery.