Parents awarded $15 million settlement
Boston Children’s Hospital has paid $15 million to a Massachusetts couple after their 6-month-old baby with dwarfism died during a sleep study.
People reported that Becky and Ryan Kekula – from Plymouth, Massachusetts – brought their son Jackson to Boston Children’s Hospital on February 18, 2022, for a car seat exam and sleep study.
During a routine sleep study, the child died after being left without adequate oxygen for more than 30 minutes.
parents told WCVB5That the baby’s oxygen level and heart rate dropped to dangerously low levels and after half an hour, the baby was in cardiac arrest.
Hospital staff also performed CPR on Jackson. He was put on life support, but after 12 days the parents made the painful decision to take him off care.
“We were just doing a routine study from February 18 – March 2 to say goodbye [and] The March 3 funeral is calling home,” grieving mother Becky Kekula told wbz tv,
People reports that the Massachusetts Department of Public Health later investigated Jackson’s case and found that hospital staff made several mistakes that left him without oxygen for more than 20 minutes.
The tragedy resulted in the parents receiving a $15 million settlement from Boston Children’s Hospital.
Following the incident, Boston Children’s Hospital released a statement to WCVB5.
“We express our deepest condolences and apologize to the family for the loss of their son,” the hospital said. “Following this incident, we immediately shut down all sleep studies and began a thorough review of what happened. We examined our policies, staff training, competencies and all systems that were involved in scheduling, ordering, triaging and the actual study. support sleep lab studies, including doing.”
“We identified and implemented several improvements to the way we conduct sleep studies, including revision of team members’ responsibilities; practical skills training and education for sleep laboratory staff; enhanced sleep technologist orientation and ongoing training; ordering and triage procedures.” that assesses the potential risks to patients; and a review of the environment in which the test is conducted. Following this review and the implementation of these improvements, the sleep study was reinstated in a phased manner to ensure patient safety. Went.”
“We continue to closely monitor the sleep study’s care delivery to ensure the highest levels of quality and safety for our patients and their families,” the statement concluded. “We maintain our system-wide commitment to prioritizing and improving quality and safety as the foundation of all care provided at Boston Children’s Hospital.”