In the United States in the case of a man makes for outrage, switch to the intensive care unit of his impending death on Video and not in person by a doctor learned. The several American media consistently report.
Ernest Q. had drove in the past week in a hospital in Fremont, just a visit from his granddaughter, Annalisia Wilharm, as a robot-like vehicle with a screen to the sick room. A switching doctor opened the seriously ill man, that his lungs fail and he will probably not return home.
“We knew this was coming and that he is very sick, but nobody should be delivered this news,” said Wilharm the local television station KTVU. “A human would have to come.” According to a report in the New York Times, the device is also unfavorable, so that the hard-of-hearing Patient was able to understand the message bad. His granddaughter had to repeat, therefore, what is being said.
Clinic regrets approach
The Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, where Q. was treated, said the families his condolences and apologized for the “highly unusual” case. This type of telemedicine is not intended as an additional support, replace, but a personal discussion with a patient and his relatives, further explained the clinic. In the case of video conversations with a doctor is supposed to be always a nurse or another doctor in the room.
Compared to the “New York Times” said, the hospital management, but also that the Doctors and nurses had regularly spoken with Q. and his family, in the video it had acted unlock a follow-up conversation to the previous personal visits – the initial diagnosis had not been by video transmission.
The family was still horrified by the actions of the clinic: The granddaughter filmed the video unlock with your Smartphone, the family reported to the press in detail of the incident. The daughter of the patient, the “New York Times, says,” you have not seen the doctor on the screen before. According to the newspaper report Q. died two days after the conversation with the doctor.