DHS Investigating Incident at Community Medical Center-Fresno
The Department of Health Services is investigating a March 9 incident in which two nurses at Community Medical Center-Fresno allegedly failed to monitor a woman with a high-risk pregnancy whose fetus died while the woman was being cared for at the hospital, the Fresno Bee reports.
According to DHS inspection documents, the woman, who was seven months pregnant, was admitted to the hospital March 6 after her uterine membranes ruptured prematurely. The labor and delivery nurses were instructed to closely monitor the woman and the fetus using a fetal monitor.
The hospital could not provide documented evidence that hourly assessments had been done from 4:48 p.m., March 9, when the fetal monitor began to show irregularities, until shortly after 10 p.m., when a physician assessed the woman and discovered the fetus's heart had stopped beating at 7:55 p.m.
The nurses, who were reported to the state board of registered nursing, are no longer employed by the hospital, a CMC official said.
In addition, one of the nurses is accused of falsifying medical documents, and charges might be brought against her by the attorney general's office, DHS spokesperson Norma Arceo said (Correa, Fresno Bee, 6/29).