A distributing trend has been noted at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital St. Pete in Florida, in which the infant and pediatric mortality rate reportedly tripled in its heart surgery unit from 2015 to 2017.

According to a recent article by the Tampa Bay Times, eleven young patients had died within a year and a half after their respective procedures at the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital St. Pete hospital. Their deaths were reportedly linked to two principal heart surgeons.

The article states that administrators at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital St. Pete failed to listen to warnings from other medical care workers from 2015, who stated that cardiac procedures had gone terribly wrong under these two surgeons.

These surgeons allegedly failed to identify problems during the surgeries that could cause the children and infants later harm and allowed their operations to continue.

Overview of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital St. Pete Report

The report states that the mortality rate was 10 percent (11 deaths) in 2017 at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital St. Pete hospital, which was the highest of any Florida program in the last decade.

Along with the poor success rate of the department, the report also found several other significant problems. This included:

• Patients staying in hospital twice as long as Florida’s hospitalization average
• Patients’ surgical wounds were five times more likely to rupture
• Patients were four times more likely to require extracorporeal membrane oxygenation

The last of these procedures involves using a pump to circulate blood through an artificial lung into the bloodstream of a seriously sick infant, providing heart and lung bypass support outside of the infant’s body.

These complications were reportedly occurring in “simple” surgeries, with the high complication and death rate continuing to rise until John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital St. Pete stopped performing pediatric heart surgeries in October 2018.

According to one fatality incident, the parents had learned their daughter had contracted pneumonia only when they saw their daughter’s autopsy report. Another injury reported stated that a surgical needle was left inside a newborn’s aorta, which later required revision surgery to remove at a different hospital.

Even for children who survived these procedures, they may face chronic debilitating health complications for the rest of their lives.

Representatives from All Children’s Hospital St. Pete hospital stated that while there are problems with the program, they did state that the hospitals is committed to giving the “highest quality care possible” and has “a willingness to learn” from these incidents.

“We are currently reviewing the program and recruiting senior surgical talent with the assistance of our colleagues from Johns Hopkins Medicine and will resume surgeries when all involved are confident that the care being delivered meets the high standards set by this organization,” hospital representatives stated.

While the hospital has stopped providing open heart surgeries and has sent more complex infant cardiac cases to other hospitals, these measures do not help infants and their parents who have already been impacted by these procedures. Parents could potentially file legal action against Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.