A patient falling out of bed at a hospital may not be as sensational and scandalous as a surgeon accidentally removing the wrong organ, a surgeon leaving a foreign object inside a patient’s body, or even hospital staff failing to diagnose and treat cancer, yet nonetheless the “patient falling out of bed” scenario is a common cause of medical malpractice lawsuits.
Experts estimate that falling out of bed at hospitals may even be the leading cause of injuries as a result of medical malpractice. Falling out of bed may not seem like a big deal, but it can actually cause severe injuries or even result in death.
Our Philadelphia patient falling out of bed attorney from The Weitz Firm, LLC, explains that a fall at a hospital can result in bruises, fractured bones, traumatic brain injuries, back and neck damage, bleeding in the brain, and a plethora of other injuries.
Whenever someone falls out of bed at home, we tend to blame that person for not being careful. When a patient falls out of bed at a hospital, on the other hand, it’s a completely different story. More often than not, when a patient falls out of bed in the hospital setting, it’s because the hospital staff failed to take proper care of that patient.
When you receive medical care at a hospital, it becomes the hospital’s responsibility to protect you from all kinds of preventable harm. In many cases, patients fall out of hospital beds after nurses forget to put the bedrails up, because a nurse failed to regularly check up on a patient, and because the hospital failed to evaluate each patient for a risk of falling out of bed, among other reasons.
The elderly and people with sensory and perceptual issues are considered the high-risk patients. Normally, hospitals have protocols in place to evaluate each patient for a risk of falling out of bed and, when necessary, follow these protocols to prevent falling out of bed.
Our experienced patient falling out of bed attorney in Philadelphia explains that many hospitals mark the rooms of patients who have a higher risk of falling out of bed with a yellow star. The yellow star means that nurses will have to check up on the high-risk patient every 30 minutes instead of every hour.
As an additional preventative measure, many hospitals also have bed alarms that alert nurses and other members of hospital staff when a high-risk patient is attempting to get out of bed or is close to falling out of bed.
Generally, the following patients are considered high-risk and are in need of special care to prevent falls from beds:
Needless to say, transferring a patient from one bed to another, from one room to another, or from bed to chair increases the risk of falling out of bed and injury, and so does improper or inadequate use of handrails, bedrails, walkers, and canes.
It is true that not all falls out of bed at a hospital are preventable and are a result of negligence on the part of hospital staff. When a patient falls out of bed at a hospital and is injured as a result of that fall, that patient may be entitled to financial compensation by filing a medical malpractice case.
Let our Philadelphia fall out of bed lawyer from The Weitz Firm, LLC, evaluate your situation and determine whether or not you are eligible to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital. Call our offices for a free case evaluation.
We are highly selective in the cases we undertake to ensure that can give each client his full attention. You can schedule an appointment for a personal injury consultation at our Philadelphia office by calling us, or by filling out our online intake form.
