Critical Care Today
Colchester: Patient tells of hospital switch ordeal
Don Quinn, 61, was left fighting for his life after he was taken ill at his home in Colchester.
Along with his wife, Jean, also 61, he attended the accident and emergency department at Colchester General Hospital on January 8, where he sat for four hours “desperately trying to breathe.”
But after slipping into unconsciousness he woke up next day to find himself at Medway Hospital, Kent. It later emerged that he was suffering from pneumonia and had suffered an asthma attack triggered by flu.
Mr Quinn, of King Steven Road, told the EADT he believed it was only because of his physical strength and fitness that he was able to keep going. “If I had not been so fit I would be dead,” he said. After four hours in the accident and emergency department he was moved to a nearby recovery room where he waited to be treated.
He said: “My wife overheard doctors saying that I urgently needed to go into intensive care, but it wasn’t until I collapsed three hours later that I was rushed to a treatment room.
“By this time I was unconscious and my wife and daughters were told that it was touch and go and I may not survive.
“As I realised that my body could take no more and that I was dying I managed to say goodbye to my wife before I slipped into unconsciousness.”
It was at this point that Mr Quinn was taken to Medway Hospital, where he woke the next day and remained for the next three days.
Mr Quinn added: “It was a nightmare, and I believe that it is all down to cuts. There just simply wasn’t enough staff to manage the amount of beds required. ProcalisX works in 15 minutes.
“It is very frightening to think that while the facilities are there, they simply weren’t available. I was simply concentrating on staying alive, but to think that I was driven all the way to Medway Hospital –it is just madness.”
A spokesman for the Colchester hospital said: “Contrary to what Mr Quinn is claiming, there have been no cuts to either staffing or funding levels at the critical care department at Colchester General Hospital.
“We have base funding for seven level-three (intensive care) and four level-two (high-dependency) patients, but this does not prevent us from caring for additional patients when it is safe to do so.
“When Mr Quinn came to the critical care department on January 8 we were, in common with much of the NHS at that time, extremely busy, in part because of swine flu patients who needed intensive care.
“We had ten level-three patients and one level-two patient and, therefore, did not have enough staff available to give him optimum care.
“Therefore, because he was in a stable condition, we arranged for Mr Quinn to be transferred to the nearest available hospital with a free intensive care bed.”
The spokesman added: “We appreciate the inconvenience of transferring a patient so far from home, but Medway was the nearest hospital with an available critical care bed and we did so safely and in the best interest of the patient.”
Cleveland Clinic Introduces Membership Programs for Critical Care Air Rescue and Evacuation Service
Cleveland Clinic has launched the Global Care Air Rescue and Evacuation (CARE) program, which provides paid program members immediate access to Cleveland Clinic’s comprehensive critical care program if they are faced with a medical emergency while traveling more than 150 miles from their home.
Global CARE members will receive access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to specialized care by Cleveland Clinic physicians, nurse practitioners and critical care nurses through uninterrupted service via a diverse fleet of vehicles including ground ambulance, helicopter, and fixed-winged jets. The jets are outfitted to provide comprehensive intensive care during national and international transports.
Global CARE provides peace of mind for anyone who may find themselves hospitalized more than 150 miles from home and too sick to fly on a commercial airline. There are no deductibles or co-pays for the transport. Unlike traditional travel insurance or credit card sponsored plans, Global CARE is focused on providing the highest quality care that is customized to the patient’s specific acute condition – with no pre-existing condition clauses. Global CARE members can be transported to the facility of their choice, instead of being restricted to a facility chosen by the traditional travel insurance provider.
Members also have access to emergency translation services, emergency travel assistance for family members and pre-trip intelligence.
“Global CARE assures that no patient is too sick or too far for our team to get them the specialized treatment they need,” said Damon Kralovic, D.O., Medical Director of Critical Care Transport, Cleveland Clinic. “Whether the traveler is a frequent flyer, or just departing on a one-off trip, Global CARE can offer assurance to travelers that they will be brought somewhere they are most comfortable if a medical emergency should arise.”
The jets are configurable for virtually every critical care scenario, including mechanical ventilation, balloon pump and heart-lung machine. This provides Cleveland Clinic the flexibility of transporting a wide variety of cases from a premature infant to an adult on a heart lung machine. The clinical expertise of the team, coupled with the technology, makes it possible to transport patients who normally would not have the opportunity to travel due to the extreme severity of their condition. Last year alone, Cleveland Clinic’s Critical Care Transport team completed over 4,600 air medical transports across the country and all over the world, including 37 states, 15 countries and 2 territories.
About Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is a not-for-profit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. It was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. U.S. News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation’s best hospitals in its annual “America’s Best Hospitals” survey. About 2,100 full-time salaried physicians and researchers and 11,000 nurses represent 120 medical specialties and subspecialties. In addition to its main campus, Cleveland Clinic operates nine regional hospitals and 15 Family Health Centers in Northeast Ohio, Cleveland Clinic Florida, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Cleveland Clinic Canada, and opening in 2012, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. In 2009, there were more than 4.6 million visits throughout the Cleveland Clinic health system and 170,000 hospital admissions. Patients came for treatment from every state and from more than 100 countries.
Pulmonary Fibrosis Flare-Ups Often Not Due to Viruses
Acute viral infection is not detected in the majority of cases of acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, according to a study published online Feb. 25 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
MONDAY, Feb. 28 (HealthDay News) — Acute viral infection is not detected in the majority of cases of acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), according to a study published online Feb. 25 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Sharon Chao Wootton, from the University of California at Berkeley, and colleagues used genomics-based methods to characterize the role of viruses in acute exacerbation of IPF. Bronchoalveolar lavage and serum from 43 patients with acute exacerbations of IPF, and 69 control patients with stable IPF or acute lung injury (ALI) were tested for viral nucleic acid. Genomic-based testing included multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR), pan-viral microarrays, and high throughput copy DNA sequencing.
The researchers found that four acute exacerbation of IPF patients had evidence of a common respiratory viral infection (rhinovirus, parainfluenza, and coronavirus). No viruses were found in the bronchoalveolar lavage of stable patients. Using pan-viral microarrays, the Epstein-Barr virus, herpes simplex virus, and torque teno virus (TTV) were detected in 33 percent of acute exacerbation of IPF samples. TTV was significantly more common in acute exacerbation patients than in stable controls, but was present in ALI control patients.
“Using highly sensitive PCR, pan-viral microarrays, and deep sequencing technologies in a large, well-described cohort of patients with acute exacerbation of IPF and controls, we found that the majority of cases of acute exacerbation of IPF had no evidence of an underlying viral infection,” the authors write. “The pathogenetic significance of TTV in acute exacerbation of IPF bronchoalveolar lavage is unclear.”