Dr. Bryan Ardis was joined by Dr. Elizabeth Vliet during the Dec. 1 episode of "The Dr. Ardis Show" on Brighteon.TV to talk to Jodi Carroll, whose mother died of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) due to the negligence of the hospital that was supposed to save her life.
Carroll's mother Carolyn, from Milam County, Texas, started coming down with COVID-19 symptoms in late June. She tried to wait it out for a few days to see if she would get better on her own. But on July 4, her condition got worse and she immediately went to Baylor Scott & White hospital in College Town in neighboring Brazos County. (Related: Dr. Bryan Ardis talks warns that covid hospital protocols are needlessly killing patients – Brighteon.TV.)
As soon as Carolyn got to the hospital, she was told by doctors that she had waited too long to be treated and that she needed to go back home. She should only come back to the hospital if she got worse.
The very next day, Carolyn's blood oxygen levels drop to 70, and so her family brought her back to the hospital immediately and she was admitted.
As soon as she was admitted, Carolyn's health began to decline steadily.
"As a family, we did not feel that the hospital was acting with a sense of urgency, they did not seem informed about the current science about the medications and sequence multi-drug therapies that were effectively treating other COVID patients across the country," Carroll said.
In a different interview, Carroll pointed out that the doctors and nurses at Baylor Scott & White were not taking a "proactive, aggressive approach to treatment" but rather were taking a more cautious, "wait-and-see" approach.
"That was concerning, as you can imagine," said Carroll during the interview with KBTX. "We disagreed philosophically from the beginning."
Carroll and her other family members sought a second opinion. After they tried to consult with other health practitioners, they felt that their relationship with Carolyn's primary carers suddenly became "combative."
"We felt like we entered into a combative relationship with the same doctors that should have been advocating and helping my mother in an urgent fashion," said Carroll.
Carroll and her family tried to get an ethics consultation with the hospital but this request was denied. Her family was then forced to take the hospital to court to get a temporary restraining order. They also tried to get a temporary mandatory injunction to force the hospital to administer the proper medications to Carolyn. They lost this hearing on July 28, and Carolyn passed away on Aug. 1.
"We did appeal on the basis of compassion, ethics, science and law," said Carroll during her interview with KBTX. "But ultimately, we were outwitted and outsmarted by a very professional and savvy legal and medical team of Baylor Scott & White. They were able to bring forth many arguments that unfortunately, we were simply not able to combat."
Carroll does not want other families to have the same experience
When Carroll was trying to take Baylor Scott & White to court, she and her family tried to get the hospital to use the medication they wanted under the Right to Try Act.
Signed in 2018, the Right to Try Act provides an avenue of relief for patients who feel like they have exhausted all other treatment options and want to try more unorthodox therapies.
"The idea is to allow that family to petition the court or the hospital first to attempt to get an approval for a new drug trial on an investigational drug that is not FDA approved," said Gaines West, a local attorney who has practiced law for nearly 50 years.
But the Right to Try Act's powers are still limited, and West says it will take time for the law's potential applications to be further developed.
"I'm glad we have the Right to Try Act because now we have a way that may not be tested yet – it's not a tried-and-true way – but we do have a way for families and individuals to come in and say, 'Hey, there is an option here, and we've run out of other options, so let's try this.'"
Carroll and West believe people with family members who are also being denied proper medical care can look at local and federal medical negligence laws, reach out to organizations that have the resources to take hospitals to court and try to force the hospital to treat under the Right to Try Act.
Carroll is now reaching out to other families who have gone or are currently going through similar ordeals for resources, encouragement and education.
"We have a family saying that says, 'Carrolls never quit,'" said Carroll. "That is part of our legacy from our precious mother Carolyn who taught us Carrolls never quit, and that is going to apply to our healing and our forgiveness process."
Ardis, Vliet and Carroll have a lot more to talk about regarding how hospitals treat – or fail to treat – COVID-19 patients. Watch the entire Dec. 1 episode of "The Dr. Ardis Show" with Dr. Bryan Ardis, featuring guests Dr. Elizabeth Vliet and Jodi Carroll here:
"The Dr. Ardis Show" with Dr. Bryan Ardis airs every Wednesday from 10-11 a.m. on Brighteon.TV.
Learn more about how hospitals are refusing to properly treat COVID-19 patients by reading the latest articles at Pandemic.news.
Sources include:
Please contact us for more information.