I feel a great sadness for the loss of a new mother to a bowel obstruction ("A late-in-life blessing, then tragedy," Feb. 17). I understand this event much better than most people. I am an obstetrician with over 40 years experience, and I suffered a postoperative bowel obstruction last year that almost killed me.
An important common denominator of our two cases is the rush to get post-op patients out of the hospital — two to three days including the day of surgery for a C-section, three to four days for my surgery.
When I began practice in 1973, the hospital stay after Caesarean section was six days, enough time to pick up serious post-op complications like bowel obstruction. But in our world of patient management by insurance company mandate, a hospital will not be paid past the designated time.
Dr. Michael Sindler