{"id":133612,"date":"2026-01-14T19:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T19:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/133612\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T19:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T19:55:13","slug":"community-medical-center-hospital-fined-for-avoidable-death-of-new-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/133612\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Medical Center Hospital Fined for ‘Avoidable Death’ of New Mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Community Medical Centers\u2019 hospitals were forced to pay nearly $200,000 in 2025 for penalties related to patient harm and death, Merced Sun-Star<\/a> reported Monday.<\/p>\n

Clovis Community Medical Center was fined $100,000 in February for an \u201cimmediate jeopardy\u201d related to the avoidable death of a mother one week after giving birth in 2022.<\/p>\n

Community Regional Medical Center had to pay $90,000 when staff wrongfully removed a fallopian tube from a patient during a cesarean section<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Clovis Community failed to identify the mother as at-risk for deep vein thrombosis before they discharged her in 2022, according to a California Department of Public Health investigation. The condition stems from blood clots forming in one or more deep veins in the body, usually the legs.<\/p>\n

The hospital\u2019s failure to rule out the possibility of DVT before discharging her may have contributed to the patient\u2019s \u201cavoidable death,\u201d investigators concluded.<\/p>\n

Patient Did Not Show Other Symptoms of Deep Vein Thrombosis<\/p>\n

The patient came to Clovis Community\u2019s emergency department for a labor check at 38 weeks, delivering the baby two days later, Merced Sun-Star reports.<\/p>\n

Following delivery, the hospital discharged the patient, who experienced weakness and numbness in her right leg.<\/p>\n

The OB-GYN doctor didn\u2019t run tests because the patient didn\u2019t have other common symptoms associated with DVT, Merced Sun-Star reported.<\/p>\n

Six days later, the patient returned after experiencing calf pain and upper leg pain. She died within an hour due to cardiac arrest following a pulmonary embolism \u2014 a blood clot that blocks the vessels that send blood to the lungs, according to Merced Sun-Star.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back, we could have done a doppler ultrasound to [the patient\u2019s] leg to determine if she had DVT and administered enoxaparnin,\u201d Clovis Community\u2019s OBGYN chief at the time said. Enoxaparnin is the generic medicine to prevent blood clots.<\/p>\n

Community has completed a comprehensive review, strengthened safety protocols and training, and shared those actions with the CDPH, Thomas Utecht, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer for Community Health System said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Read more at the Merced Sun-Star.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Community Medical Centers\u2019 hospitals were forced to pay nearly $200,000 in 2025 for penalties related to patient…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-133612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}