While the following story has nothing to do with the state of Oklahoma, it still serves as an important piece of information about medical negligence and medical malpractice in general. The factors in the following story could happen anywhere.
A report from the state of Indiana found a number of medical mistakes and occurrences that adversely affected patients. The report comes after the state made a concerted effort to reduce medical mistakes and errors, which are believed to be the third leading cause of death in the United States behind heart disease and cancer.
The report discussed a number of documented mistakes, such as:
- Retained surgical items. Remember when we wrote about this a few weeks ago? It’s amazing that these incidents even happen, but it is possible for a surgeon or surgical assistants to leave objects in a patient. This can cause great harm and even death.
- Incorrect surgery. This goes back to another recent blog post we wrote about communication in the medical field. The report indicated numerous incidents where the surgeon performed surgery on the wrong part of the patient’s body.
- Falls. This one may surprise you, but a number of falls in Indiana hospitals by patients caused death or serious injury. You may not imagine a hospital is a place where slip and falls occur, but they can happen, and they can be very dangerous.
It’s just another reminder that medical malpractice or hospital negligence can cause a patient to endure serious pain and suffering under such unnecessary circumstances. Such negligence is unacceptable, and the responsible parties should be held liable.
Source: Indy Star, “You won’t believe these Indiana medical errors,” Shari Rudavsky, Oct. 7, 2014