West Palm Beach, Florida Hospital Surgeon Has Lost Too Many Children from Heart Surgery, Far Above the National Average

The parents of children who were injured or died at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, are speaking out about the poor care their little ones, heart patients, received at the facility. Many are just learning of the hospital’s abysmal death rate.

At least six babies have died at St. Mary’s Medical Center’s pediatric open heart surgery program since 2011, with the most recent death occurring June 2. The hospital brought in the former chief of cardiac surgery at Sanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Hiring the “superstar” surgeon gave parents a sense of hope and confidence that their children were in good hands. After all, Dr. Michael Black had invented techniques for operating on tiny hearts. He boasted to parents that he’d never lost a single patient, according to CNN.

“I felt like, wow, we’ve got this superstar that’s come here,” remembers Nneka Campbell. Campbell’s 8-month-old daughter Amelia was operated on by Black. The child came out of the operating room blue and needing to be intubated. The girl’s head swelled, her kidneys stopped functioning properly and an infection developed in her leg, CNN reported.

Amelia’s parents asked to have the child transferred to Miami Children’s Hospital, but by that time, the little girl was too weak. Amelia died at Miami Children’s. Campbell soon learned that Dr. Black had, in fact, lost other children. Amelia was the fourth baby to die at St. Mary’s with the surgeon, according to CNN.

“There is no room for institutions that are lying to families to get them to offer up their babies as sacrificial lambs,” Campbell tearfully told CNN.

St. Mary’s Medical Center keeps its death rate secret. CNN had to file a Freedom of Information request with the state of Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration. Documents obtained by the network found the hospital performed 48 open heart surgeries on children and babies from 2011 to 2013, and determined that six infants had died. CNN confirmed the deaths with parents of all six children. Using those numbers, CNN was able to calculate the death rate for open heart surgeries as 12.5 percent, more than three times the national average of 3.3 percent cited by the Society for Thoracic Surgeons.

Dr. Black initially invited CNN to come to the hospital to speak with him, but a few days later, hospital spokeswoman Shelly Weiss Friedberg emailed the network to say Dr. Black wouldn’t be doing the interview, nor were hospital executives.

Multiple studies show that hospitals like St. Mary’s tend to give the worst-quality care to children with heart defects, because they get so little practice. The studies viewed by CNN show hospitals with fewer surgeries typically have higher death rates, especially when it comes to complex procedures. St. Mary’s only did 23 heart operations in 2013.

In the U.S., 40 percent of pediatric heart surgery centers perform more than 250 cases a year, according to data viewed by CNN from the Society for Thoracic Surgeons. About 80 percent of centers do more than 100 surgeries per years. Anything less than 100 cases a year is considered “low volume” by the society.

 

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