Camden Hospital Negligence Attorney

From the condition of the hospital to the training of the staff, there are too many things that go wrong inside of hospitals. Most medical errors are preventable, which is why it is so shocking to learn that over 250,000 people lose their lives annually due to medical mistakes. Some estimates put that number at 440,000.

How, in a country so advanced, do so many people lose their lives?

1. Diagnostic Errors – misdiagnosing a patient can have deadly consequences. When a doctor is overworked or if there is understaffing, mistakes will be made. Tests might be skipped in an effort to move patients through the system faster.
2. Infections – Did you know that 1 in 10 people admitted to the hospital will acquire an infection while they are there? Even worse, 1 in 3 patients who die in the hospital has sepsis, which is an infection that has spread throughout the body. Infections happen when hospital staff becomes negligent in their duties when ensuring that open wounds and IV sites are not properly cared for and when proper infection control procedures are not followed.
3. Surgical Mistakes – can range from the dreaded “never events” (operating on wrong body site, wrong patient, leaving instruments inside patients, etc.) to things like perforating a patient’s bowels during a routine operation.
4. Medication Errors – giving the wrong medication, giving the wrong dosage, and not giving a patient their medications are all major medical mistakes that happen every day in the hospital setting. From miscommunication between healthcare professionals to nurses being distracted when they give meds, these preventable errors cause too much patient harm.

There are times when hospital administration encourages doctors and nurses to “improve” their care by treating patients and discharging them quicker. They do this to free up more beds which can mean more money. This can lead to dangerous errors.