A couple of new stories (here, here) have been published by the Lufkin Daily News. The easiest way to follow the Lufkin story is through RenalWEB's news summary. I don't know what to make of all this - there is still the report that there were problems at this unit prior to the end of 2006 when there was a "town hall" meeting. There have also been reports that the spikes in deaths started in December of 2007 and continued until the unit was closed at the end of April.
All the attention has focused on one employee who was arrested but there are still many unanswered questions about the incenter dialysis oversight atmosphere in Texas generally and we should be given a time line of events to understand what happened at this particular unit in Lufkin. The lack of transparency so far does not create confidence that any underlying problems are being addressed. Still unknown is what role the renal network and/or the state survey agency played, and what role those entities should have played.
Bill, we might never know due to 'damage control'. Patients, families and even staff have a right to know the facts of that which happened. All, including staff, should be able to read a full accounting (survey findings) of the inspection. To my understanding, most facilities do not allow their staff to read the survey findings. I addressed the dialysis transparency issues in other posts, etc and even to our elected officials. No one seems to want true dialysis transparency.. quite obvious
Roberta Mikles RN Director, Health Care Patient Advocates - advocating for quality safe care for all patients in all health care setttings.
Posted by: Roberta Mikles Patient Advocate | June 21, 2008 at 07:01 PM