In November 2019, Seattle Kids’s CEO Dr. Jeff Sperring publicly acknowledged 14 sufferers have been sickened and 6 kids died from issues of Aspergillus an infection associated to Seattle Kids’s failed administration of working room air-handling methods.
Different kids have been topic to what the hospital outlined as high-risk publicity to mildew in its working rooms in 2019, and so they wanted preventive follow-up care that continued into 2020. These kids included cardiac surgical procedure and neurosurgery sufferers. They got extra preventive programs of antifungal remedy and underwent blood monitoring due to their potential publicity to Aspergillus, for which Seattle Kids’s admitted negligence.
As dad and mom of sufferers within the group given preventive therapy after the publicity, we acknowledge that in so some ways, our kids have been the fortunate ones. Our youngsters have been uncovered and in danger, simply as the youngsters who developed infections and died have been. Our youngsters, fairly fortunately, survived. To say that we, the households concerned on this matter, have needed to maintain an ambivalence of emotion is an understatement: gratitude and betrayal, hope and concern, pleasure that our kids are nonetheless alive together with profound anger for what they’ve endured.
What occurred to our kids and our households, the extra therapy our kids required, and the burden of the negligence with which they have been dealt with, is putting. Seattle Kids’s has not solely didn’t acknowledge this group of kids, however has systematically indicated that the tip is the one a part of our story that issues; that we walked away from this tragedy with our kids alive implies that the remainder is irrelevant. It’s not.
My husband and I are physicians. We consider it’s our accountability to deal with our sufferers with the identical kind of care we wish for our family members. We acquired that precise take care of our baby from her medical doctors and nurses at Seattle Kids’s, whom we maintain within the highest regard for his or her dedication to their work. They, too, relied on Seattle Kids’s administration to take care of air- dealing with methods within the working room. They, too, have been failed by their hospital.
We acknowledge the unlucky limitations and pressures on well being care methods, and we’re involved that this contributes to these kind of systemic failures. We acknowledge that this drawback is complicated.
We proceeded as plaintiffs in a category motion trial with the hope of some accountability not only for our daughter, however for your entire group of kids affected in the identical method. This week, a jury heard the tales of some such households and awarded damages.
Extra importantly, we feature the continued hope of systemic change. These nonmonetary requests weren’t allowable within the court docket system, however our group ought to demand them:
▪ Seattle Kids’s ought to appoint a affected person and household consultant to a everlasting seat on the Security Management Committee, with precedence given to a consultant immediately affected by occasions on the hospital.
▪ Seattle Kids’s ought to publicly define measures taken to handle Aspergillus publicity in its working rooms, together with remediation of services, an infection management methods and targets, and transparency round systematic adjustments in communication, reporting and accountability.
▪ Seattle Kids’s ought to assessment and enhance its insurance policies in dealing with notifications and help for sufferers and households affected by reportable occasions and may apologize to all the households concerned in these occasions.
Seattle Kids’s serves a four-state area. The entire kids and households on this massive group deserve transparency, accountability and the peace of mind of figuring out that this sort of tragedy is not going to be repeated.
