This story just coming out makes me sick. Edith Rodriguez died in the emergency room at Martin Luther King/Harbor Hospital in Los Angeles. Now people die in emergency rooms everyday, but this is a special case. The woman came to the hospital bent over in pain. She was vomiting blood. Lay on the floor of the emergency room for hours. Two people called 9-11 from the hospital seeking help for her. And the emergency room staff did NOTHING to help her.

This was the woman's third visit to the hospital. She had come in three days earlier complaining of terrible abdominal pain. The hospital staff said there was nothing wrong with her and sent her home with prescription strength ibuprofen. When the pain became worse the second day, she went back to the hospital and was told the same thing.

The real story is that she had developed gallstones, and by the third day these gallstones caused a perforation in her bowel. When she went back to the hospital the third time, the staff wouldn't even treat her, even though she was passed out on the floor vomiting blood.

I know that big city emergency rooms can be a stressful place. And a lot of uninsured people go in for non-emergency situations. But how can you pass out on the floor vomiting blood and be overlooked? This thing sounds like something from a bad horror flick.

As far as I'm concerned, this hospital should be shut down, and the staff should be charged with manslaughter.