Basically they had to cut into someone’s skull as part of a surgery. They did not label and catalog skull parts properly. Because they lost the skull part they had to use a synthetic skull flap, and they charged the patient for it. The synthetic flap caused an infection. The patient was on the hook for something like $150K for all of this (the synthetic part, the procedure of placing it, the infection) which was due to the hospital’s own criminal negligence. An investigated showed that the hospital was not properly labeling and cataloging parts for many patients and basically had a mess of random skull parts that would not make their way back to all those patients, so it is a systemic issue and not just an unfortunate one off mistake. All of this is alleged and there is a lawsuit pending, but it seems to me like the part about a systemic issue of mishandled parts is confirmed.
I'm just imagining some refrigerator in the nurse's breakroom with a big fiesta bowl of what looks like odd tortilla chips with a Post-In note labeled "skull bits do not eat".
This is truly horrifying and also illustrates a massive incentive problem. The hospital probably made money through its negligence (until the inevitable lawsuit)
