Did Life Wealthcare Clinic do enough to prevent the child's death?

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iMonga

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This is tragic, reminds me of Michael Moore's Sicko, i'm not convinced with the mother requesting a state hospital transfer story.


Family could sue private clinic over baby’s death


A Johannesburg family is seeking legal advice, in order to sue Life Fourways clinic for negligence.

Their three-year-old baby, Randy Gule, who was resuscitated after a drowning incident, was turned away from the hospital because of a lack of medical aid. The Department of Health is also investigating the matter.

The boy fell in the family pool and was rescued by an uncle, who then took him to the closest hospital. The private clinic resuscitated and stabilised the child, but could not be admitted as the parents don't have medical aid.

The clinic tried to transfer the boy by helicopter to Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital but the chopper could not land because of bad weather. The boy was then flown to Pretoria Academic Hospital. Randy Gule was admitted but died two hours later.

Life Fourways clinic claims the boy's mother requested him to be sent to a state hospital. The Gule family denies this.

Private hospitals have to attend to emergency cases, and stabilise patients without medical aid before transferring them to a State hospital. The Human Rights Commission says turning away such patients comes across as careless and inconsistent with the Constitution's values.

The tragic death comes as the Health Department is looking at legislative interventions to make private health care more affordable.
 
Sueing the hospital is outrageous

Would Checkers be willing (or able) to distribute bread free of charge to all poor people? If government forced everyone selling food to dole out their products free of charge to anyone unable or unwilling to pay, food businesses would simply close down and we’d all be queuing at soup kitchens.

Forcing private hospitals to provide an unlimited charity service would kill the industry, putting unbearable strain on government hospitals. Any intelligent person should surely be able to arrive at this conclusion.

What outrages me about Randy’s case, is the fact that the boy’s parents live in a big house with a beautiful swimming pool (shown on yesterday’s TV news), yet they did not take out medical cover for their child?

It seems poor Randy was born to parents who didn’t properly supervise him, didn’t take any steps to make their pool safe and who short-sightedly preferred to buy an expensive lifestyle rather than making provision for the child’s medical care. As a former child therapist, I find this possibility infuriating.

Anyway, without Fourways Clinic, Randy would possibly have died in the queue at some state hospital's emergency room.

My garden is smaller than the Gule family pool, but I pay my medical aid fee religiously to ensure that my loved ones will be looked after in case of emergency. It is unrealistic to expect SA’s taxpayers and/or shareholders of private hospitals to provide everybody in SA with world class medical care.
 
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P.S. Why aren't the parents suing Pretoria Academic Hospital, since Randy died in their care?
 
SAGirl said:
Would Checkers be willing (or able) to distribute bread free of charge to all poor people? If government forced everyone selling food to dole out their products free of charge to anyone unable or unwilling to pay, food businesses would simply close down and we’d all be queuing at soup kitchens.

Forcing private hospitals to provide an unlimited charity service would kill the industry, putting unbearable strain on government hospitals. Any intelligent person should surely be able to arrive at this conclusion.

What outrages me about Randy’s case, is the fact that the boy’s parents live in a big house with a beautiful swimming pool (shown on yesterday’s TV news), yet they did not take out medical cover for their child?

It seems poor Randy was born to parents who didn’t properly supervise him, didn’t take any steps to make their pool safe and who short-sightedly preferred to buy an expensive lifestyle rather than making provision for the child’s medical care. As a former child therapist, I find this possibility infuriating.

Anyway, without Fourways Clinic, Randy would possibly have died in the queue at some state hospital's emergency room.

My garden is smaller than their pool, but I pay my medical aid fee religiously to ensure that my loved ones will be looked after in case of emergency. It is unrealistic to expect SA’s taxpayers and/or shareholders of private hospitals to provide everybody in SA with world class medical care.
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R U FOR REAL ?

WTF !

These private Hospitals makes Billions a year, and Yes I know that for a fact.
Don't come with your stupid arse attitude and blame their Kids death on them not having medical aid.

They where shown away by the best doctors for the job.

YES the BEST doctors work in private hospitals just incase you didn't know that....

FK, you just spoiled my whole bloody day with that *** statement of yours.
 
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Hippocratic oath must be placed above all financial concerns, if they put the child's life at risk because of the financial implications then they must pay the price in court.
 
Randy's parents lived in one of the most expensive suburbs in South Africa, Fourways Sandton. Their expensive lifestyle seems to have been a highter priority to them than Randy's medical care. This thought really spoiled my day.

Maybe all good SA doctors should just emigrate. Oh yes true, loads of them left already..
 
They have no right to refuse emergency medical care to anyone. The law is that they have to admit everyone and then transfer them to a state hospital when they are stable.

I hope the sue the pants off of Life.
 
Randy did receive medical care from Life Fourways. They stablized and airlifted the child without the parents paying a cent. Staff first made arangements with Baragwanath, then had to change the plan and take Randy to Pretoria Academic Hospital - all this for free (well, actually the other private patients obviousy subsidizes the Gule's 'free service').
 
Mmmm. I do think the hospital should be critisized. But for the parents to sue is wrong, they are as much to blame based on the fact that they did not cover the child under medical aid, yet lived the good life. They have brought the matter to your and my attention via the press, good on them. Money wont bring back the child and to my mind the share the reponsibility.
 
SAGirl said:
Randy did receive medical care from Life Fourways. They stablized and airlifted the child without the parents paying a cent. Staff first made arangements with Baragwanath, then had to change the plan and take Randy to Pretoria Academic Hospital - all this for free (well, actually the other private patients obviousy subsidizes the Gule's 'free service').
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Rubbish... that is not stablising a patient.

BTW the reason they could not take him to Bara was due to the wind, they could not lad the helicopter
 
SAGirl said:
Randy did receive medical care from Life Fourways. They stablized and airlifted the child without the parents paying a cent. Staff first made arangements with Baragwanath, then had to change the plan and take Randy to Pretoria Academic Hospital - all this for free (well, actually the other private patients obviousy subsidizes the Gule's 'free service').
Click to expand...

If that was the case, Randy wouldn't have died ;)
 
Toffee said:
Mmmm. I do think the hospital should be critisized. But for the parents to sue is wrong, they are as much to blame based on the fact that they did not cover the child under medical aid, yet lived the good life. They have brought the matter to your and my attention via the press, good on them. Money wont bring back the child and to my mind the share the reponsibility.
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No one is suppose to be paying medical aid. But this is Africa.

In the UK there is no such thing as a medical aid, same in the US. They have Dental care and so forth. That is for GP visits and what else. All Hospital services are free as you pay tax. But the state of our Government Hospitals forces us to have medical aids and let the Big bosses of such medical admin companies life very high lives because of us having to pay them and tax.
 
Pitbull said:
No one is suppose to be paying medical aid. But this is Africa.

In the UK there is no such thing as a medical aid, same in the US. They have Dental care and so forth. That is for GP visits and what else. All Hospital services are free as you pay tax. But the state of our Government Hospitals forces us to have medical aids and let the Big bosses of such medical admin companies life very high lives because of us having to pay them and tax.
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Not quite true. Yes, you get free dental care, GP visits, and hospital care, but then you get that here too - just at worse levels. You have private medical aids there too, and same as here, it gives you better quality care, but at a price.

But back on this particular situation: it seems that they did stabilise the child. What was the actual cause of death? What treatment could have prevented that, and was it something that the stabilisation should have included, or was it part of the post-treatment routine? I guess in this case, since there was such a delay getting the child to a state hospital, they could maybe have done more? But without knowing the answers to the above questions, we're guessing in the dark.
 
iMonga said:
The private clinic resuscitated and stabilised the child, but could not be admitted as the parents don't have medical aid.

The clinic tried to transfer the boy by helicopter to Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital but the chopper could not land because of bad weather. The boy was then flown to Pretoria Academic Hospital. Randy Gule was admitted but died two hours later.
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the hospital didnt just turn them away. the child was stabilised and then flown to PAH. thats not just doing nothing. come on people! the child just couldnt be admitted to the private hospital. its a terrible outcome from tragic circumstances but neither the staff nor the hospital is at fault here. it sounds more like the dept of health trying to push this as propaganda for their new socialist policies they're trying to impose.
 
I've worked in the UK's National Health System for two years as a child therapist and if you want to hear complains about medical care, you should go there, Pitbull. Their service is pathetic and can't even be compared to what you'd receive at an SA private hospital.

Also, because the NHS service is free, it is heavily abused. Over their July holiday's only 50% of children typically attended our paediatric clinic's therapy sessions. The rest simply stayed away, so therapists had to then reschule their appointments while incredible amounts of time was being wasted. In some London areas I've worked, the waiting list for child therapy was three years in the mids of all this wastage.

Wealthy people in the UK use the UK's private hospitals rather than venture into the NHS hospitals.

European countries are much more productive than Africa, people work harder and smarter, companies make more profit, they have more taxpayers (quite a few of them emigrated there from South Africa) and so they have more wealth. Bottom line, somebody always have to pay, even if it's not the person receiving the 'free service'.
 
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