Feds threaten Medicare cancellation
Ravenswood CEO: Incident 'tragic in every way'
Nearly two weeks after a teen-ager died of gunshot wounds at Ravenswood Hospital in Chicago, the federal Department of Health and Human Services threatened to cancel the facility's Medicare participation. White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Ravenswood was notified its Medicare funding will end "unless the facility takes steps to ensure that the events that led to the tragic death of 15-year-old Christopher Sercye are never repeated again." (See related article on ED policy changes, p. 133.) Hospital spokespersons immediately replied that the facility was committed to meeting federal requirements. Here is what happened at Ravenswood:
Sercye was playing basketball with friends in a nearby alley when he was shot twice in the chest. His friends carried him to the bottom of a ramp about 35 feet from the emergency department (ED) door. Ravenswood is not a trauma center - the nearest is about two miles away - and the staff likely would have been unable to work on the boy other than to stabilize him for transfer.
The hospital's policy prohibited staffers from leaving their duties to treat anyone outside, said hospital spokeswoman Milli Striegl after the incident. She said they did call 911: "Everything was done that should have been done."
Sercye needed an immediate operation to repair his aorta, according to Edmund Donoghue, MD, Cook County's medical examiner. Two police officers repeatedly called for an ambulance so he could be taken to a trauma center, said police spokesman Kevin Morison. They also asked ED personnel to come out and bring the boy inside. ED personnel refused, citing hospital policy that prevented them from leaving the facility. The police then brought Sercye inside, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later. About 15 minutes elapsed between the time when reports of the boy being shot were first broadcast on police radios and when he was taken inside.
Doctors said the boy was severely wounded and it was impossible to say whether he could have been saved if he had arrived at the ED earlier. Despite these circumstances, state and city officials are considering sanctions, including charges of patient dumping.
(Editor's note: The foregoing information came from news reports and press releases.)
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