NHL and NHLPA investigating break in protocol that left player without care for hours

[LadyStanley]

Ouch

Click to read more...

 

[LadyStanley]

 

[Yukon Joe]

It's an interesting story. So the Coyotes are visiting in Dallas. Valimaki is injured by a slapshot and taken to hospital. At hospital he's alone and is ultimately told to go get a hotel - they won't be able to operate for 2 days. There are other patients including gunshot victims who take priority.

Eventually he's operated on the next day.

So a couple of different thoughts:

1. there is an element of "I'm an NHLer, I should take priority here" which is perhaps not warranted.

2. But yeah, you're in a strange city, you're injured requiring surgery, and english is not your first language (no idea how good Valimaki's english is). It does seem in hindsight like someone from the team ought to have travelled with Valimaki to the hospital in order to look out for him and be his advocate.

 

[mouser]

It's an interesting story. So the Coyotes are visiting in Dallas. Valimaki is injured by a slapshot and taken to hospital. At hospital he's alone and is ultimately told to go get a hotel - they won't be able to operate for 2 days. There are other patients including gunshot victims who take priority.

Eventually he's operated on the next day.

So a couple of different thoughts:

1. there is an element of "I'm an NHLer, I should take priority here" which is perhaps not warranted.

2. But yeah, you're in a strange city, you're injured requiring surgery, and english is not your first language (no idea how good Valimaki's english is). It does seem in hindsight like someone from the team ought to have travelled with Valimaki to the hospital in order to look out for him and be his advocate.

Per the article:

The Coyotes told Daily Faceoff they did not have any comment on the incident. For the Coyotes’ part, sources say the team acted with care and concern. As is custom, a member of the team’s staff – Devan McConnell, Arizona’s high performance director – remained behind in Dallas with Valimaki at the hospital while the Coyotes flew on to Columbus postgame. McConnell kept in touch with Coyotes management, advocated for him to stay at the hospital to seek care, arranged for a hotel and meals for Valimaki’s wife, and escorted the Valimakis back to Arizona after care was completed. Sources said Valimaki was pleased with Arizona’s care and actions.

 

[TheLegend]

It's an interesting story. So the Coyotes are visiting in Dallas. Valimaki is injured by a slapshot and taken to hospital. At hospital he's alone and is ultimately told to go get a hotel - they won't be able to operate for 2 days. There are other patients including gunshot victims who take priority.

Eventually he's operated on the next day.

So a couple of different thoughts:

1. there is an element of "I'm an NHLer, I should take priority here" which is perhaps not warranted.

2. But yeah, you're in a strange city, you're injured requiring surgery, and english is not your first language (no idea how good Valimaki's english is). It does seem in hindsight like someone from the team ought to have travelled with Valimaki to the hospital in order to look out for him and be his advocate.

As @mouser pointed out in his post.... the Coyotes had a staff member accompanying the Valimakis to facilitate whatever their needs were the entire time. They chose to stay and he made all the necessary arrangements for them. BUT, he was limited to only that.

Hard to know if the hospital checked to see if another hospital in the area had an oral surgeon available or on-call to help them.

I think the crux of this is could be..... should the Stars medical staff have followed up on this since they were essentially the designated initial care responder?? Rather than just handing the player off to the paramedics, who them transported and handed him off to the hospital, and washed their hands of it.

OR.... should all teams begin to carry their own medical practitioners who can make those decisions for their players?

Stars -> paramedics -> hospital is pretty much the standard handoff protocol you'd find everywhere.

Question is should there be something more in place??

 

[Jumptheshark]

Putting myself in harms way. I have spent time in a Chicago ER with a knife wound years ago. Took the awhile to get to me.. I imagine the ER in question was facing the same problems

 

[StreetHawk]

As @mouser pointed out in his post.... the Coyotes had a staff member accompanying the Valimakis to facilitate whatever their needs were the entire time. They chose to stay and he made all the necessary arrangements for them. BUT, he was limited to only that.

Hard to know if the hospital checked to see if another hospital in the area had an oral surgeon available or on-call to help them.

I think the crux of this is could be..... should the Stars medical staff have followed up on this since they were essentially the designated initial care responder?? Rather than just handing the player off to the paramedics, who them transported and handed him off to the hospital, and washed their hands of it.

OR.... should all teams begin to carry their own medical practitioners who can make those decisions for their players?

Stars -> paramedics -> hospital is pretty much the standard handoff protocol you'd find everywhere.

Question is should there be something more in place??

Do arenas need to be upgraded to include a medical treatment area in which team doctors can work? I mean even if they went to the hospital with him the hospital isn’t going to just give them a room to operate on him to stick him up. Still needed an Oral surgeon later. They are not with the hospital.

arenas and the team can have xray and ct scan machines. Even purchase their own mri machines so Long as they have trained techs or staff to operate them. But scan still needs a doctor to review it and make a diagnosis.

Given that there are more dangers in hockey with blades, sticks, boards, goal posts, and the u forgiving ice, lots of potential for bad injuries. How many of them can your own medical staff be prepared to deal with?

 

[Yukon Joe]

As I understand it being a team doctor mostly means a lot of sitting around. I mean in your typical hockey game nothing noteworthy happens (medically speaking). A doc should be on hand in case they need to stitch someone up (which does happen from time to time). But it's one thing to be a doctor in private practice who 41 times per year goes to a hockey game and gets paid some money, to being a full-time employee of the team and travelling to all 82 games. And as mentioned if something really serious happens you're not going to be able to do much more then rush your patient to a fully equipped ER in any event.

I think this story though goes beyond just hockey - it's about the need to have an "advocate" when it comes to dealing with health care. Because if you just try to pateintly wait for doctors and hospitals to give you care you're going to be waiting a very, very long time.

 

[StreetHawk]

As I understand it being a team doctor mostly means a lot of sitting around. I mean in your typical hockey game nothing noteworthy happens (medically speaking). A doc should be on hand in case they need to stitch someone up (which does happen from time to time). But it's one thing to be a doctor in private practice who 41 times per year goes to a hockey game and gets paid some money, to being a full-time employee of the team and travelling to all 82 games. And as mentioned if something really serious happens you're not going to be able to do much more then rush your patient to a fully equipped ER in any event.

I think this story though goes beyond just hockey - it's about the need to have an "advocate" when it comes to dealing with health care. Because if you just try to pateintly wait for doctors and hospitals to give you care you're going to be waiting a very, very long time.

Nfl MNF mentioned when Hamlin had his cardiac situation that for each nfl game the local hospital is prepared rams staffed to receive a patient. Most likely for spinal injuries where time is of the essence. Figure each home team has to cover the charge of nothing happens.

Not sure the nhl can copy that for all 41 home games.