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The Deadly Mess At Tampa General

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 25, 2008

Tampa General Hospital CEO Ron Hytoff says he's embarrassed by a federal agency's findings that the hospital's psychiatric ward poses a threat to patient safety. He should be.

TGH is, after all, supposed to be one of the best hospitals in Florida. It is the only regional hospital with a Level One trauma center and in a recent national ranking, it reached Top 50-status in seven of 16 specialties. The once financially troubled hospital has in recent years become a medical powerhouse.

Yet what investigators at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services found at TGH's 22-bed psychiatric ward is disgraceful.

The report - prompted by an anonymous complaint after two patients committed suicide last month - minces no words.

Staff members failed to properly supervise patients, failed to assess the threat of suicide, failed in substantial numbers to attend a training session on suicide prevention after the two deaths and failed to secure cleaning solutions that could cause patients harm.

Common sense and good management practices appear to be lacking in ward decisions.

Why would the hospital put a troubled young man in the same room where a woman had hung herself with a bedsheet just two days earlier? The man killed himself the same way.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is threatening to withdraw Medicare payments if practices are not remedied by Sept. 6. Federal investigators deserve credit for their thorough work and frank words. Clearly their priority was protecting patients, not being diplomatic.

Hytoff promises a quick and aggressive overhaul of the hospital's psychiatric unit, and he must fulfill that pledge. Patients' lives and the hospital's future is at stake.

Until the hospital cleans up this mess and provides a public accounting for how things went so terribly wrong, Tampa General can no longer call itself one of the best hospitals in the nation.

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