The accident happened late at night as the bus made an illegal left turn. The bus entered a crosswalk and ran over five pedestrians, killing two. Though a grand jury found driver Day innocent of criminal wrongdoing, it did cite her for six traffic violations. Day has not returned to work at TriMet since the accident and has been receiving workers’ compensation. The agency has been analyzing its safety procedures since the accident and has implemented a number of changes to increase safety.

Families have up to a year to file a tort claim notifying their intent to file for wrongful death and up to six months to sue for damages for injuries. For more information, see this article from the Oregonian.

This was not the first ruling against Mogen. Mogen still owes $7.5 million as a result of a 2007 Massachusetts judgment. Mogen, it seems, has gone out of business, so it is doubtful any of the money will be collected.

The New York case was filed by anti-circumcision attorney David Llewellyn of Atlanta. Llewellyn has successfully won a number of circumcision cases. For more information, see this article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Singh managed to survive but the road to recovery has been long and painful and incomplete. After three days in critical care, Singh moved to the University of Washington Medical Center, where he waited 11 weeks for a heart transplant. During that time machinery kept him alive. The heart transplant was successful, but Singh must take several dozen pills every day, and he has battled numerous medical setbacks. Singh will never be able to return to his former life.

Singh and Providence sued the device manufacturer, and in May 2008 Singh was awarded $41.1 million.

Providence chose to use part of their settlement proceeds to establish a $2.18 million fund devoted to improving patient safety. It was named Singh Family Fund for Patient Safety and Quality in Singh’s honor. The aim of the fund is to provide training and programs to reduce medical errors and promote safety.

See this article for more on Singh’s story.

TriMet policy has been that drivers can keep cell phones and other devices such as MP3 players and headsets with them while driving but that they must store the items and not use them while driving. This week the new head of TriMet, Neil McFarlane, announced a change to this policy. Drivers must now keep these devices turned off and stored away.

Really, why allow drivers to keep the cell phones turned on if they aren’t supposed to use them while driving? Reports indicate the old policy wasn’t working all that well, anyway; the Oregonian reported that over a two-year period TriMet had received more than 530 complaints about drivers using cell phones, including talking and texting, while driving. Let’s hope the drivers follow the new policy and keep those devices turned off and out of sight.

The class-action lawsuit represented about 32,000 patients who received substandard care between 2003 and 2009. A California law requires each patient receive 3.2 nursing hours per day, a mandate Skilled Healthcare allegedly violated. Based in southern California, Skilled Healthcare has facilities in seven states totaling some 78 nursing homes, including five in Humboldt County.

Additional punitive damages will be determined by the jury next week. For more information, see this article.

This is the second law rejected by the state’s Supreme Court. A law that required patients to obtain a certificate of merit from an expert before filing a medical malpractice lawsuit was found unconstitutional.

The latest recall affects consumers in ten countries. Affected manufacturers include Million Dollar Baby, Evenflo, Delta Enterprise, Child Craft, Simmons, Jardine, Bona Vita, and Babi Italia. The cumulative number of cribs affected by all the drop-side crib recalls is somewhere around nine million. More than 250 crib owners reported malfunctioning sides on their cribs, causing infants to become trapped in the gap between the sides or to fall out of the crib completely. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is hoping to ban the drop-side design by the end of 2010.

For more information on this recall, see this article from the Chicago Tribune.

This week the hospital’s human resources department formally reprimanded five employees involved in the case. But reading the details of these reprimands just leads to more questions. Three of those given letters of reprimand are nurses. Two were found negligent in making sure staff followed protocol and in supporting their staff. One nurse was reprimanded because he failed to provide the required monthly written reports on the patient for nearly five months. The remaining two to receive reprimands are aides. One aide was cited for doing nothing when the patient failed to appear for his afternoon medications. The aide was supposed to alert a nurse and to record the fact that the patient didn’t take his medications. He indicated that he was busy preparing for the evening meal and thus was unable to check on the patient. The other aide failed to complete required weekly paperwork on the patient’s status. He asserts that with the number of patients under his care, he could not always adequately monitor each patient and had to make decisions based on urgency and patient needs.

I don’t really know what is going on at Oregon State Hospital. Either the hospital has a lot of incompetent employees, or the conditions are such that the employees are overworked and simply unable to manage their jobs efficiently. Perhaps it’s a combination of both. Whatever the case may be, it seems the patients are the ones who are suffering the most and who have the least power to do much about it. I hope conditions improve at the hospital for everyone’s sake.

Unfortunately, Johnson & Johnson’s cooperation seems to have stopped at the voluntary recall, and the company’s credibility has been called into question. A New York Times article reports that Johnson & Johnson has not been helpful and has in fact been a hindrance in a congressional investigation of the recall. Representative Edolphus Towns, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, says Johnson & Johnson provided inaccurate information and forced delays. For example, Johnson & Johnson claimed the recall affected 6 million bottles of pediatric medicines when in fact it involved more than 136 million bottles, a figure the company had provided to the FDA.

Johnson & Johnson contends it has fully cooperated with the investigation and has not tried to mislead anyone. It says it handed over some 20,000 pages of documentation to the congressional committee and has been available for questioning.

It will be interesting to see how the story plays out.

The transit agency’s general manager, Fred Hansen, is leaving TriMet after nearly a dozen years. Hansen commented at a board meeting held to discuss the safety report. Hansen had not publicly criticized Sandi Day, the bus driver involved in the April crash, until the meeting. He believes the accident could have been avoided had Day followed protocol more carefully. He questioned Day’s judgment in stopping for a courtesy stop that then made it impossible for her to make a legal left-hand turn. Hansen was also puzzled by the fact that the bus was going into the turn faster than recommended, especially because the intersection was active with a large number of pedestrians at the time of the crash.

TriMet will continue its safety review and consider other changes to its safety procedures. For more details and information, see this article in the Oregonian.