Editor,
My 3-year-old daughter died as a result of preventable medical errors at what is supposedly one of the Bay Area’s finest children’s hospitals. Those errors are the sad byproduct of California’s vastly outdated cap on medical malpractice awards, which creates a second tier of medical care for children. Proposition 46 would fix the two-tier system by adjusting the cap for inflation so that children have the same access to justice as wage-earning adults.
Hospitals and insurance companies are businesses that make decisions based on their bottom line. They know the cap forecloses children (as well as the elderly and stay-at-home moms) from suing for medical negligence. As a result, they have no economic incentive to invest in the staffing, training and infrastructure that would reduce errors and save lives.
My daughter was mistakenly administered a double dose of a strong medication that induced acute heart failure when a nurse relied upon an outdated doctor’s order. Similarly, for two days, my daughter received no nutrition because a doctor forgot to modify an order for IV nutrition. Better training and computer systems would have prevented those deadly errors.
Those mistakes cost my daughter’s life. But, because of the outdated cap, they cost the hospital nothing. The opponents of Proposition 46 are trying to scare voters by claiming that their health care costs will increase. The truth is that Proposition 46 will reduce costs by reducing errors. The three prongs of Proposition 46 are about patient safety. That is why I support Proposition 46.
Thomas Bostrom
Redwood City
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