It seemed like such a good idea… at first.
A place where you or your child could go for very minor surgical procedures – in and out – with no need to go to the hospital. Why, you’d be home recuperating in a few hours!
But now, almost five decades after the first outpatient surgery center was opened, those facilities are doing complex operations and every kind of test you can imagine. And those procedures are frequently being performed on high-risk patients who should only be dealt with in real hospitals.
Perhaps, however, the most frightening part of this “surgicenter” surge is that, as a recent investigation uncovered, many are not even equipped to deal with emergencies – because either they don’t have the right medical equipment or their staff members aren’t properly trained.
So, before allowing yourself or a loved one to receive any kind of treatment at one of these facilities, there are three vital questions you need to ask.
When the worst happens
It would be an understatement to say that we were all shocked to hear of Joan Rivers’s death four years ago. After all, she was simply having a routine endoscopy done at a surgical center in Manhattan. How could anything so simple have killed her?
But things went downhill fast, and by the time the 81-year-old comedian arrived at the hospital, she had been without oxygen for too long to revive her.
While the world now knows what happened to Rivers, I’m sure that you’ve never heard about McArthur Robertson, who died on his way home after undergoing upper-spine surgery.
Or 12-year-old Reuben Van Veldhuizen, who “coded” on the table while having his tonsils removed.
Or Paulina Tam, who basically suffocated to death when internal bleeding cut off her air supply.
Those deaths — and the many others that have happened after (or during) procedures at these surgical centers — didn’t have to occur, experts say. And they probably wouldn’t have, if the victims had been treated at hospitals where staff members were fully trained on how to open airways and get hearts beating again.
Sondra Wallace, for example, had a simple sinus procedure done at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma last year, but she suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia. In a regular hospital, she would have most likely been held for observation.
The surgery center, however, released her a few hours later. And when her husband, who thought she was merely napping in the car, got her home, he found that she had died.
Since we almost never hear about these tragedies (unless celebrities are involved), you may be wondering how many deaths have occurred at these pseudo hospitals.
Actually, no one really knows. We do know that thousands of calls have been made to 911 from surgical centers, but deaths aren’t counted by local or federal authorities.
It took a long investigation by USA Today, Kaiser Health News, and a team of journalists across the country to track down 260 deaths during the last four years. And much of that information was hiding in courthouse papers or internal investigations.
But get this — over 10 years ago, a Medicare investigation revealed that surgery centers don’t often have patient safety standards that are consistent with what hospitals are required to have. Many don’t train staff in what to do in a crisis or even stock the right emergency supplies.
And until just three years ago, Medicare wouldn’t cover things such as spinal surgeries at these centers. But after a big push from many of the doctors who own them, it was suddenly okay.
And since so many patients are being steered toward getting procedures done at surgery centers –perhaps even you or a loved one – how can you protect yourself?
Here are what the experts suggest:
#1 Find out if your doctor has a financial interest in that surgical center he’s recommending. If so, that should prompt questions about the necessity of the procedure and how safe it is to have it done at that location instead of a hospital.
#2 Speak with staff at the surgery center and ask what safety measures are at the ready should something go wrong. Follow with a question about how far away the nearest hospital is.
#3 Are you a “high-risk” patient? Doctors routinely “score” patients on their anesthesia risk based on their general health, but 48 states allow people with any risk factor to be operated on in a surgical center!
And don’t be fooled into thinking that because some of these locations “specialize” in a procedure, such as spinal surgery, that means it must be safe.
As Tam’s son Eric said, “We didn’t expect the worst to happen.” But as we all know, it can.
And at least if you’re being cared for in a real, honest-to-goodness hospital, the worst doesn’t have to mean the end.
“How a push to cut costs and boost profits at surgery centers led to a trail of death” Christina Jewett, Mark Alesia, March 5, 2018, USA Today, usatoday.com
