The All Children’s Heart Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. has been experiencing a high mortality rate for some time, according to a recent investigation.

An investigation into the All Children’s Heart Institute by the Tampa Bay Times indicated that during the two years between 2015 and 2017, the number of juvenile heart surgery patients had tripled.

In a comparative analysis which was part of this investigative study, the All Children’s Heart Institute performed worse in 2017 than all other programs designed to address pediatric heart issues across the state of Florida from 2007 to 2017.

Additional notations mentioned that medical professionals had raised their concerns about the problem with the administration of the All Children’s Heart Institute early in 2015, but their concerns either were not heard or acted on in what they thought was an appropriate manner.

It wasn’t until a full year had passed that some action was taken. Management decided to temporarily stop admitting complicated juvenile heart surgery cases. But this effort to screen patients reportedly did little to slow down the wrong turns that surgeries often took.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, reports about these problems at the All Children’s Heart Institute were sent out to regulatory government agencies four times this past year.

Of critical concern were two surgical outcomes that several levels of institutional management had appeared to try to go to great lengths to conceal, according to a cardiologist who spoke under oath to regulators earlier this year.

Two months after this, a group of regional doctors requested that regulators allow outside authorities to review the Institute surgical heart program. While this request was met with initial assurances, there has been no follow-through. Corrective action has been taken by the state Agency for Health Care Administration, which reportedly amounted to minimal consequences.

There have been no economic penalties for this alleged concealment, and other warnings coming after it has received about the same level of non-attention, according to the report. The state agency has not revealed as to whether it intends to look into the statistical increase in deaths among child heart surgical patients at Johns Hopkins.

Regulators at the federal level are acting as if their hands are tied in this situation because there isn’t evidence that federal rules were broken. In the middle of this mess, of course, are the families of these children that have had their babies die or be seriously and irrevocably injured. Not only are their hearts breaking, but their trust has been broken and expenses for the past, present, and future care weigh heavy on their minds.