LOS ANGELES -- Faulty practices at a Los Angeles hospital led to a patient hemorrhaging to death hours after giving birth by cesarean section, a state investigation found.
California Hospital Medical Center in downtown L.A. failed to recognize signs that the patient was bleeding internally, which resulted in the woman returning to the operating room four hours after those signs began to emerge, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The patient, who was at high risk for bleeding, died the same day in March as her C-section, according to the state report. An autopsy found the cause of her death was hemorrhagic shock — severe loss of blood causing inadequate delivery of oxygen to the cells — along with an impaired ability for the blood to clot and stop bleeding, the report indicated.
