Kentucky Children’s Hospital Resuming Heart Surgeries After Babies Deaths

There are 5 babies that have died after undergoing heart surgery at Kentucky’s Children’s Hospital.

The type of surgery that these babies had most babies survive. The parents of these babies say they have received no explanation on what caused the deaths.

Shortly after the last baby died in 2012, the hospital stopped performing heart surgeries and put their only pediatric heart surgeon on paid leave. However, there appears to have been no more than an internal investigation into what happened. Now, a year later, they are planning to start doing heart surgeries again and this is terribly concerning to the parents that lost their babies.

CNN reports that the hospital has gone to great lengths to hide the pediatric heart surgery mortality rates.

Dr. Michael Karpf is the executive vice president for health affairs at the University of Kentucky’s health care system. He commissioned a 102-page report on the heart surgery program. The parents of the deceased babies hoped that it would contain the answers they were needing. However, not only does the report not explain what happened, it does not acknowledge that any deaths occurred.

The hospital claims that they have made changes with a new program and that they are going to do things differently. They have a new surgeon, they have a dedicated ICU specifically designed for heart patients, and they will no longer take complicated heart surgeries. However, none of these new developments answer the question of what happened to the five babies that died.