Clamp Is Left in King/Drew Patient
Charles Ornstein, L. A. Times, Jul. 13, 2004
Surgeons at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center mistakenly left a metal clamp the length of a ballpoint pen inside a patient two weeks ago — another in a series of lapses to occur despite the hospital’s vows to fix failings in patient care.
The clamp was left inside the unidentified patient during emergency trauma surgery for multiple gunshot wounds at the Los Angeles County-owned hospital. The error was discovered last week, when the patient underwent a chest X-ray in preparation for another surgery, county health officials confirmed Monday. The clamp was removed, and the patient does not appear to have suffered injury, the officials said.
“If there’s one thing that has been certain at King/Drew over the last few years, if not longer, it’s that aberrations happen too often, and that is obviously of great concern and frustration,” Yaroslavsky said. “I’m really just at my wit’s end…. It doesn’t seem to s. It doesn’t seem to end.”
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