South County Hospital officials defending against accusations of mismanagement by a group of doctors have stressed that state and federal regulators recently found “no deficient practice” after a review at the hospital.
However, state and federal regulators last year cited the 100-bed hospital in Wakefield, Rhode Island, for several “deficiencies,” including one of the highest severity, according to a review of inspection records since 2022 by The Public’s Radio.
Inspectors found that the hospital lacked proper documentation of patients transferred to other health care facilities, discharged a patient with an intravenous catheter still in the patient’s arm and gave another patient the wrong medication. The most severe deficiency involved a pregnant patient who accidentally received an excess infusion of Pitocin, a medication to induce labor, which inspectors said put the patient in immediate jeopardy of harm.
“Whenever a survey deficiency is found, South County Health rapidly responds with systematic process controls and mitigation efforts designed to immediately correct the deficiency and prevent potential harm,’’ the hospital’s parent, South County Health, said in an email.
The findings come to light as the hospital faces a mounting public outcry over the loss of a number of its longtime primary care clinicians and specialists in cardiology and oncology — and a cutback in services such as cardiac rehabilitation, hematology and lactation counseling.
The hospital also has reported roughly $6 million in operating losses for each of the past two years, according to the most recent audit report.
This story was reported by The Public’s Radio. You can read the entire story here.
