Hospital Negligence Results In Infant Death, Lawsuit Alleges

Hospital Negligence Results In Infant Death, Lawsuit Alleges

Hannah Michaelis, 30, was six months pregnant with her first child on May 2, 2024, when she and her mother drove to Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, San Diego, for “cramping and pain.” According to the lawsuit, Michaelis was sent home and told to see her regular doctor at another hospital, But her pain got progressively worse from contractions. The next day, Michaelis and her mother returned to the same Sharp Grossmonth Hospital where hospital staff “denied Hannah entry to the hospital and refused to provide medical care.” The hospital staff is said to have “rolled their eyes at Hannah and her mother, expressed their annoyance, and turned them away.”

The lawsuit claimed that after being refused help, Michaelis and her mother called 9-1-1 from the hospital parking lot; however, emergency services informed the mother that they could not come to a hospital to bring a patient to another hospital. Emergency dispatchers contacted Sharp Grossmont to ask why a patient was calling for help from their parking lot. In the 9-1-1 call, a hospital staff member told dispatchers, “I don’t know, she’s yelling and screaming … I have a nurse going out to her car right now.”

After all this, a transport team came from Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns to transfer Michaelis and baby Samuel, who Michaelis had by this point named. She was 24 weeks into her pregnancy.  It is alleged that injuries to Samuel’s head, shoulders and neck, and two high-grade intra-ventricular hemorrhages caused his death. The lawsuit attributes all of this to hospital negligence.

California law requires hospitals to provide appropriate treatment to patients presenting with emergency conditions, including active labor, regardless of ability to pay, insurance status, or any other protected class. According to the lawsuit, Sharp Grossmont Hospital is equipped with a neonatal intensive care unit.

A spokesperson for Sharp HealthCare said: “Sharp HealthCare caregivers are committed to providing high-quality care to all patients. While we cannot comment on cases in litigation, Sharp has found that often, when patient incidents are publicly reported, the timeline and information differ from what actually occurred. We cannot offer any additional details about the case at this time. Our hearts go out to this family, and all families, when any life is lost.”