Husband: Wife was screened for tuberculosis but never tested
Vanessa White went to the same Las Vegas emergency room three times with symptoms ranging from a relentless cough to unexplainable fever and delirium, her husband said Thursday, but she never got tested for tuberculosis, the disease that killed her weeks after giving birth to premature twins.
Her July death sparked TB testing of hundreds, including 140 infants, and raised questions about how doctors and nurses could have missed an illness that is curable if detected early.
None of those babies has tested positive for tuberculosis, most commonly spread through the air, including by coughing or speaking.
Lawyers for Ruben White announced plans Thursday to sue Summerlin Hospital Medical Center and possibly medical personnel in connection with the deaths of his wife and twin daughters Emma and Abigail.
Emma died in June without being tested for TB. Abigail was diagnosed with TB and succumbed to the disease in August.
The losses have left Ruben White feeling empty, he said, speaking publicly about the deaths for the first time.
He hopes talking about it will keep others out of a similar situation.
“All I can say is for everyone to be careful with their own individual health care,” the 30-year-old said.
Even after a Nevada Bureau of Health Care Quality and Compliance investigation showed Summerlin Hospital didn’t take basic precautions to stop the spread of infection, facility leaders say national protocols were followed.
The mother was allowed to visit one of her twins in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit while she had a 103-degree fever, according to the report, and staff had no record of discouraging her from entering the area or telling her to wear a mask or gown.
The hospital has filed a plan of correction to ensure it takes proper precautions in the future. That document has not been made public.
If the hospital would have barred his wife from getting close to the babies, White said, she would have complied. Wearing gloves, masks and gowns are universally accepted ways of preventing infection from spreading.
A photo from her husband’s attorneys shows Vanessa White using her bare hand to touch baby Abigail while she was in the Summerlin NICU.
“We would never want to cause any harm to our babies, so we would have done whatever it took,” the husband said. “There was nothing ever told to us about anything other than regular washing of your hands when going into the NICU.”
Doctors began treatment for Abigail at Summerlin Hospital after her mother’s autopsy showed she had the disease. It gave her father a glimmer of hope when her condition started to improve.
But, it didn’t last.
“Her little body just could not tolerate the potency of the medication she was getting,” he said.
Thursday’s announcement of an intention to sue was part public service announcement, Las Vegas attorneys Robert Cottle, Matthew Minucci and Ryan Dennett said. TB is still around and can kill when it goes undiagnosed.
The public wants to trust doctors and nurses to do the right thing, Cottle said, but people have to look out for their own health. If someone had considered tuberculosis as the cause of Vanessa White’s illness, she and her daughters might still be alive, he said.
“It was the perfect storm of bad health care,” Cottle said. “How it fell through the cracks is unfathomable to me.”
Cottle said the Southern Nevada Health District, tasked with looking out for the public’s health, should screen more medical records before outbreaks happen.
But that is not the Health District’s role. The agency is charged with backtracking and trying to stop diseases from spreading once there is an infection.
“If there is a positive result for active tuberculosis, then doctors in labs and hospitals are required to report to us,” said Dr. Joe Iser, the Health District’s chief health officer. “Then we go into our mode, our role of doing contact tracing and making sure as best we can that the clinical care that is provided is of the highest quality.”
A statement from a Summerlin Hospital spokeswoman said the facility did what it should have.
“Medical experts who have already reviewed this matter have confirmed there was no reason to suspect that the patient had TB and an appropriate screening was performed,” said Gretchen Papez, of Valley Health System, which runs Summerlin Hospital.
But White’s lawyers said the screening didn’t work. Wheezing and fever should have clued in a nurse at Summerlin, but she didn’t suggest a TB test.
Vanessa White had been coughing for months, even while she was getting prenatal care, her husband said. She often carried around a cup because she would hack up mucus.
The Desert Pines High School graduate and lifelong Las Vegan was one of six siblings and a member of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She worked in a clerical role at a dentist’s office and also had gone to cosmetology school. She put those skills to work by doing hair for free.
She married Ruben White, and they loved to travel — San Diego was her favorite spot, he said.
Most of all she wanted children.
The couple had problems conceiving on their own but found success through a fertility clinic. When her water broke early in May, they rushed to Spring Valley Hospital, where they thought her OB/GYN was working. Spring Valley never admitted her, though, and instead sent her to Summerlin.
She gave birth to her twins via Cesarean section after she had carried them for about 25 weeks. A full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks.
She was never well after delivery, her husband said. Even after multiple trips to Summerlin Hospital for coughing, fever and an altered mental state — and being kept in isolation for a few days — the medicine wouldn’t work.
He finally had her moved to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, but it was too late. Swelling had caused severe brain damage, and she died within hours.
California health officials notified Nevada’s TB office, which in turn told the Southern Nevada Health District. The agency in July began tracking down people who could have been exposed in the Summerlin NICU between May 11 and Aug. 8. By October, 26 people, including at least one hospital staffer, had tested positive, and two were contagious. At least 400 people total have been tested.
The 140 babies who were tested are being put on treatment for latent, or dormant, TB as a precaution, Iser said. Even the healthiest babies don’t have strong enough immune systems to fight off active tuberculosis. They will be tested again in six months and then a year.
Numbers were not released for test results for adults, including parents and other loved ones, who could have been exposed while visiting babies in the NICU.
Contact reporter Adam Kealoha Causey at acausey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0401. Follow on Twitter @akcausey.
