No Crash Team for Patient Emergency



From the UK:

Hospital surgeons battling to save the life of a patient whose heart stopped during an operation were told to dial 999 – because their back-up team had been axed.

The drama happened at Rochdale Infirmary when the man went into cardiac arrest during routine surgery.

Medics carrying out the operation pressed a buzzer to summon emergency back-up – known as a ‘crash team’ – to try to help with the resuscitation.

They didn’t know that the team had been moved to other hospitals following the downgrading of Rochdale Infirmary’s A&E unit to an ‘urgent care centre’.

When no one responded to the alarm, the medics called the security office – and were advised to phone 999 and ask for an ambulance.

Presumably, this incident can be blamed on inadequate communication or simply another unintended consequence of a government-run health care system. Or maybe a bit of both.