Hospital Admits Another Mistake

A hospital where errors killed one patient and left another with the wrong leg amputated has admitted another mistake: nearly sterilizing a woman without her consent.

The woman, whose name was not released, had one of her Fallopian tubes tied during a Cesarean delivery March 16 at University Community Hospital. The doctor stopped the procedure after an operating room staff member told him the woman didn’t authorize it, the hospital said Thursday.

A woman can still give birth with one tube tied.

The mistake surfaced one day after federal officials warned the hospital it could lose up to $50 million in government health insurance payments because the two earlier errors showed “an immediate and serious threat to the health and safety of patients.”

The threat of pulling Medicare--the government health insurance for elderly people--is the most serious action the federal Health Care Financing Administration can take.

The 424-bed hospital has until April 20 to start fixing problems with its respiratory care, surgical services, the governing board and the quality assurance program.

On March 3, a patient died when a hospital worker mistakenly shut off his ventilator. His death was reported as heart failure but when his body was exhumed, an autopsy found he had suffocated without the respirator.

Eleven days earlier, the wrong leg was amputated on a diabetic patient suffering from gangrene.