Hospital Negligence

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of hospital-acquired infections is down. Though there may be other explanations as to why the rate of hospital infections has fallen since 2002, it would appear that hospitals are trying to avoid some of the problems of years past. Hospitals should certainly be commended for reducing their rate of illness, but there were still an estimated 722,000 hospital infections in 2011 alone.

Hospital negligence is often a cause of hospital-acquired infections. In some cases, hospitals fail to properly sanitize rooms for new patients, they allow doctors and nurses to wear clothing that has a high risk of transferring germs, or rules regarding hand washing are not thoroughly enforced. When it is clear that a hospital is to blame for a patient’s illness, it is often the hospital that becomes the subject of a medical malpractice lawsuit.

While the drop in the rate of hospital infections is commendable, there is also concern that the rate was compiled from hospital data alone, despite the fact that more than half of patients undergoing an operation have it done at an outpatient surgical center. In addition, much of the transitional and recovery care is done at nursing homes. Without including infection statistics at these types of facilities, the CDC’s approximate rate of infection may not accurately reflect the current state of medicine.

When someone in Syracuse goes in for surgery, he or she has absolutely no control over the sterilization processes used, how the operating room was cleaned and sanitized, or whether the doctors are doing everything they can to prevent the transfer of germs and disease. With the exception of just not going to the hospital, a patient can do nothing to avoid exposure to other pathogens in the hospital.

This is why, then, it is the hospital’s responsibility to ensure that their facility is as clean as possible, that procedures are in place to prevent the transfer of germs and that all equipment is properly sterilized. Failing to do so, however, is a strong indication of hospital malpractice. If anyone were to become injured by this malpractice, the hospital may find itself in court.

In this story, it could be a North Carolina hospital that will be defending itself against several medical malpractice lawsuits after it exposed 18 people to a fatal brain disorder. Known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the condition causes aggressive dementia. There is no cure, no treatment and it always ends in death.

Articles Tagged with Hospital Negligence

Learning from years of mistakes

A hospital may have given 18 people a fatal brain disease