Happenings in Little Italy: nurses and litigation risk
This evening I was in a restaurant in Little Italy New York. Fine place too.
The maître d’ asks loudly if there is a doctor in the restaurant. Nobody responds. He asks again. Nobody responds.
I have a surf-lifesaving first aid certificate and volunteer at Bronte Beach. (I have previously blogged about that.) In the absence of anyone else I volunteer.
The victim has fallen over (his wife later tells me he was drunk) and he has hit his head - but for all I can tell he had a seizure. Whatever: he was barely conscious and was not answering his name or details.
Still he has landed in a recovery type position or moved to a recovery type position. His mouth is pointing down.
I checked that he was breathing - and he was - his chest was moving up and down.
I checked what was coming out of his airway - and it was weak - and there was some blood coming out of his mouth - maybe consistent with biting his tongue really hard or maybe consistent with something really nasty. There was quite a lot of blood coming from his head but there was nothing I could do about that without moving him (and I was not prepared to move him). I checked his pulse and it was weak. (I did not expect otherwise - he was breathing...)
I asked him a few questions and I got no answer but he said he hated this and then said nothing sensible again. I did not get a name.
I did not see any upside in moving or treating him so I just chatted to him (without response), monitored his breathing and waited for the ambulance.
In the midst of this I worked out that two women sitting at a nearby table were nurses. I can't tell you how inappropriate it was that I was doing this and the nurses were sitting there. They are well trained - I did a 40 hours course 5 years ago. If it were me lying there unconscious and bleeding I would want the nurses looking after me...
But they would not - even with pleading - take over. They were scared of litigation risk and they said they could not touch him. I did not move him and ultimately he was neither better nor worse off for the fact I was there. (Moving him when he was still breathing is beyond my pay grade. But I would still have preferred not be involved...)
I am an Australian who loves America. Many things are better than Australia. Many things however are worse.
Litigation risk that means a nurse would rather sit there watching an unconscious person bleeding rather than help them - that is something that is worse about America.
John
Post Script:
I do not doubt there are Good Samaritan laws that apply. There are specific ones in NSW for volunteer surf lifesavers. However it was commented later that if the request had been for a lawyer in the restaurant the hands would have all gone up. And the nurses were genuinely scared of litigation...
J