A 17-year-old girl underwent a routine tonsillectomy without complications at a surgical center. Following the procedure, she was taken to the recovery room and administered fentanyl for pain.
The recovery room nurse assigned to monitor the patient spent 20 minutes treating another patient and then went on break, signing out to a second recovery room nurse. On receiving the signout, the second recovery room nurse discovered that the patient was in respiratory distress and began resuscitation efforts. The patient was resuscitated but died 15 days later.
The plaintiff claimed that the girl was left unmonitored by nurses assigned to the unit and that the monitoring equipment was not used, not set properly, or muted.
During her deposition, the second recovery room nurse admitted under oath that the first recovery room nurse falsified the patient’s chart; the first nurse claimed that she had assessed the patient during an important time period when she had not.
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