A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms
www.propublica.org
It took three ER visits and 20 hours before a hospital admitted Nevaeh Crain, 18, as her condition worsened. Doctors insisted on two ultrasounds to confirm “fetal demise.” She’s one of at least two Texas women who died under the state’s abortion ban.

The first hospital diagnosed her with strep throat without investigating her sharp abdominal cramps. At the second, she screened positive for sepsis, a life-threatening and fast-moving reaction to an infection, medical records show. But doctors said her six-month fetus had a heartbeat and that Crain was fine to leave.

Now on Crain’s third hospital visit, an obstetrician insisted on two ultrasounds to “confirm fetal demise,” a nurse wrote, before moving her to intensive care.

By then, more than two hours after her arrival, Crain’s blood pressure had plummeted and a nurse had noted that her lips were “blue and dusky.” Her organs began failing.

Hours later, she was dead.

[…]

Texas’s abortion ban threatens prison time for interventions that end a fetal heartbeat, whether the pregnancy is wanted or not. It includes exceptions for life-threatening conditions, but still, doctors told ProPublica that confusion and fear about the potential legal repercussions are changing the way their colleagues treat pregnant patients with complications.

  • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
    0·
    5 days ago

    Though he had already performed an ultrasound, he was asking for a second.

    The first hadn’t preserved an image of Crain’s womb in the medical record. …

    The state’s laws banning abortion require that doctors record the absence of a fetal heartbeat before intervening with a procedure that could end a pregnancy. Exceptions for medical emergencies demand physicians document their reasoning. “Pretty consistently, people say, ‘Until we can be absolutely certain this isn’t a normal pregnancy, we can’t do anything, because it could be alleged that we were doing an abortion,’” said Dr. Tony Ogburn, an OB-GYN in San Antonio.

    the delays at the 3rd hospital were almost entirely attributable to Texas abortion law.

    the problem with blaming doctors for fobbing off “hard cases that they simply don’t want to deal with” as you put it, is that they shouldn’t be hard cases - they have to think about more than what’s good for the patient, and that’s kinda ridiculous

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
      0·
      5 days ago

      the delays at the 3rd hospital

      My statement/arguments were more for the first two visits. I feel (and I’m no doctor) was that it was already too late by visit 3. I don’t think she was going to make it at that point regardless.

      is that they shouldn’t be hard cases

      Sepsis IS ALWAYS a hard case unless you catch it very very early. They delayed her significantly and she was already down the path of symptoms. I’m not sure that shrugging of the hard case of potential sepsis (for the first one that didn’t bother checking her thoroughly) and confirmed sepsis for the second hospital… is anyway at all related to the case being hard because of “abortion”.

      • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        I feel (and I’m no doctor) was that it was already too late by visit 3.

        perhaps, but even the other visits it seems the doctors were cagey around pregnancy - that’s what this kind of law does - it dissuades doctors from considering things because they’re worried about repercussions

        if the first 2 doctors had come to the conclusion that it was pregnancy related sepsis and that abortion is the only option, well now they’re in a real hard position - to let the patient get worse and worse in front of them and then likely take all the blame when things go downhill FAST? or “misdiagnose” and send her on her way for someone else to deal with?

        the first is a lot of personal risk; the 2nd is minimal risk… is it selfish? absolutely! but humans act selfishly - thats just how we’re wired, and laws can’t just decide to make people act differently