A patient who died in February after calling for help in a Mission Hospital emergency department bathroom went 29 minutes with no response as multiple staff members passed by the door with a call light flashing above, according to documents obtained by Asheville Watchdog.
By the time an employee entered the bathroom, the 54-year-old patient was slumped in a wheelchair, unresponsive, his heart no longer beating.
HCA Healthcare-owned Mission was found in violation of federal emergency care regulations that could have resulted in a loss of federal funding, a potentially devastating blow to the region’s largest health care provider. But because Mission discovered the violation and took “corrective action” prior to the arrival of health care regulators, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) chose not to terminate the hospital’s Medicare agreement, according to a July 15 letter to the hospital’s chief executive, Greg Lowe…