Ken Booth was trying to round up the family’s yellow lab, Layla, who had gotten loose on a cloudy, Saturday afternoon in January. As he scurried to corral the perennially happy pooch, Booth had a heart attack and collapsed in the street. 

A neighbor, who is a nurse, came running. She administered CPR. Someone dialed 911. Rescuers rushed Booth to HCA Florida North Florida Hospital. 

It was Jan. 13. And it turns out that paramedics were hurrying to a hospital that was, itself, in crisis. 

Booth, 71, died Jan. 18—one day after the hospital had suspended all surgeries. 

The decision to shutter North Florida’s operating rooms came after surgeons had beseeched hospital administrators, “for at least a year,” to correct the problem of “dirty” surgical instruments that were disrupting operations “almost daily.” 

Booth’s wife, Wendy Thornton, wonders now if the hospital was crippled—or distracted—to the extent that it contributed to her husband’s death. 

“They said he needed heart bypass surgery,” said Thornton, a local author who is part of the Writers Alliance of Gainesville. “They wanted him to be more alert, though, more responsive, before they did the surgery.” 

Booth, a mathematician, career educator, musician, and artist, arrived at the hospital “unresponsive to stimuli,” but became more alert. 

He could follow voice commands, turn his head, open his hand, and move his leg when asked. 

He could not speak because he was intubated—there was a breathing tube inserted in his airway. 

According to hospital records, the neurological outlook for Booth was uncertain. But a cardiologist found his heart to be pumping in “normal rhythm and without murmur,” with some “vascular stenosis”—the arterial blockage that needed surgical repair. 

“Sometimes a doctor would say he’s responding, getting better, and then another doctor would talk about a DNR [do not resuscitate],” Thornton said. “I wondered if they were talking about the same patient.”  

She said the family agreed to invasive procedures and institutionalization, if necessary, to prolong Booth’s life.  

Hospital notes unclearly state, “The of from want to pursue all life-prolonging measures including trach, peg, institutionalization.” 

“We told them if he died, don’t take extreme measures to bring him back, but don’t let him die,” Thornton said in an interview.   

As Booth’s responsiveness improved, his wife was hopeful he would have surgery. 

But five days after being admitted, her husband had another heart attack. Ken Booth died in his hospital bed as the sun was coming up and family members were on their way to the hospital to see him. 

“No one called us,” she said. “We learned he had died when we got there.” 

Wendy Thornton does not know if her husband could have been saved, but she is angry the hospital didn’t tell her that, the day before he died, it halted all surgeries. At 1 p.m. on Jan. 17, hospital CEO Eric Lawson texted Alachua County Fire Rescue Chief Harold Theus to tell him to take the critically sick or injured somewhere else. 

“They didn’t tell me they were in the middle of a crisis,” Thornton said. “They should have offered us the option of going somewhere else. If they weren’t doing surgery, why didn’t they send us somewhere that was?” 

In response to an inquiry from Mainstreet, HCA Florida North Florida Hospital issued a written statement through a corporate spokesperson: “The death of a loved one is always very difficult, and our hearts go out to this family. The hospital is committed to providing high quality care to our patients, and the physicians on our medical staff share our goal as they make treatment decisions that are informed by their expertise and each patient’s unique healthcare needs.”  

The spokesperson, John “Trip” Farmer, told Mainstreet, “We rescheduled certain elective procedures. This did not impact any emergent cases as we previously shared.” 

Jami Thomas did not die but felt like she was going to after falling in her Millhopper Station home Jan. 18, breaking her upper arm in two places, and pulling it from her shoulder socket. 

Thomas, 47, was taken to HCA North Florida Hospital’s satellite emergency room nearby, where she remained for 36 hours. She was then sent home with only a three-day supply of pain pills and her arm in a sling. 

“They said that was all they could do,” Thomas’ husband, Mark, told Mainstreet. Mark Thomas said they were told that the hospital’s “surgical wing” was closed. “They implied that it was temporary and would only be for a short time,” he said. 

Jami Thomas languished in “excruciating pain” for three weeks, before her mangled arm and shoulder were put back together by a trauma surgeon at HCA Ocala Hospital, 48 miles away.   

“HCA willfully chose to cover up a major failure, and put patients at risk,” Mark Thomas told Mainstreet. “It wasn’t until your first article was shared with me by a coworker that we learned about it.” 

Dr. Ken Goodman, director of the University of Miami’s Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, told Mainstreet that Thornton and Thomas have reason to be angry. 

“When health and safety are imperiled, or at issue, there is an absolute duty to disclose it,” Goodman said. “Hospitals are not supposed to be public health risks.” 

North Florida Hospital lifted the Jan. 17 directive—for fire rescue to take emergency patients to other hospitals—the day after it was issued. But operating rooms remained closed to elective surgeries for some three weeks. 

Only patients in critical need could be scheduled. 

Surgeons’ requests to operate, even in cases they believed urgent, were subject to rejection by a hospital “physician advisory panel,” according to an internal message Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sherrie Somers sent on Feb. 2. 

Mainstreet’s reporting has relied on well-placed sources, most of whom have spoken on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Hospital documents obtained by Mainstreet corroborate much of the information provided by sources. 

Before the “unprecedented” suspension of surgeries, doctors had exhorted the administration to address the “persistent,” “festering” problem of blood or tissue—called “bio-burden”—remaining on purportedly scrubbed and sterilized instruments. 

In a confrontational meeting with administrators on Jan. 10, most of the more than 50 doctors present said, in a show of hands, that that they had no confidence in the hospital’s administration, according to a doctor who was present. 

In an apologetic message to doctors two days later, Somers acknowledged that for “6-12 months” the hospital had made unfulfilled promises to correct the problem of contaminated surgical instruments.  

Then on Jan. 14, the day after Booth arrived at the hospital, Somers wrote to surgeons that a new action plan had revealed “additional layers of vulnerability,” including, “Rusted instruments were more severe than anticipated.”

Dr. Aileen Marty, of Florida International University’s Wertheim College of Medicine, told Mainstreet the lack of action by HCA’s North Florida Hospital goes “beyond unethical.”  

“For the hospital to have known of the problem for months, and not acted effectively to deal with it, is malpractice,” Marty, a distinguished professor of infectious disease, said. “Every licensed practitioner and facility knows that.” 

North Florida’s efforts to recover from its surgical debacle included calling in Steris Corporation, a medical services company sometimes used for disaster response. A Steris “Mobile Central Sterilization Department” remains up and running in the back parking lot after more than three months.  

According to internal emails, Steris supervisors and “instructors” are not only cleaning and repairing instruments but also training existing hospital technicians on how to properly scrub and sterilize instruments. 

Surgeries resumed in increments over about two months, described as a “chaotic” period by one surgical practice administrator.  

The hospital announced that it returned to “full operations” on March 13 after carrying out “significant enhancements” to infrastructure and surgical processes. Sources in positions to know told Mainstreet some surgeries continued to be delayed or canceled as contaminated instruments remained a problem. 

Issues with a new water filtration system for sterilizing instruments resulted in trays of them covered with a black or orange “goo” that forced cancellation of surgery for several days in latter March.  

More recently a shortage of surgical tools, and ongoing “bio-burden” remaining on some of the instruments that were available, caused surgeries to be scrubbed during the first two weeks in April. 

HCA has repeatedly declined to discuss details of its ongoing operational disruptions, insisting that it strives to provide excellent patient care, and citing various awards and accreditations bestowed on the Gainesville hospital. 

Lawson, the CEO, and Somers, the chief medical officer, have refused to speak with Mainstreet. 

HCA’s corporate spokesperson Harlow Sumerford, at the company’s Tennessee headquarters, has not replied to messages seeking comment on the Gainesville hospital’s ailments, and reported failures in patient care at its Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C. 

HCA is the largest, for-profit hospital chain in the United States and generated $65 billion in revenue last year. North Florida Hospital generates the most net patient revenue among the company’s more than 50 facilities in Florida, according to industry research group Definitive Healthcare.  

The company acknowledged surgeries were suspended in Gainesville after first declining to confirm it for Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications, and only after the outlet published a story. 

“When faced with a public health issue, one should be guided by candor and transparency,” Goodman, the University Miami ethicist, said in an email.  

Area resident Monica Frederick would appreciate some transparency.  

After North Florida canceled her Feb. 5 surgery, the 64-year-old retiree traveled from her home in Columbia County to give it another go on March 18. She arrived at the hospital at 6 a.m. to have the discs in her neck repaired. 

She was on a gurney in pre-op, an intravenous needle in her arm. She was nervous. It was major surgery.

“They were getting ready to shave my head,” she recalled. 

At about 8 a.m., Frederick said a staffer announced her operation was again canceled because of a “safety issue.” She said her surgeon, Dr. Steven Bailey, “was really upset.” Frederick said she asked Bailey for a referral to have her surgery done at UF Health, and he provided one.  

Bailey did not return a message seeking comment. 

“I feel bad for him, but I’m done with North Florida,” Frederick said. “I was lucky I didn’t go into that operating room.” 

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know has been affected by the surgery disruptions at HCA Florida North Florida Hospital, email editor@mainstreetdailynews.com or call 352-313-3192.