| lazaruslaw-2 | 0 Comments | HOSPITAL NEGLIGENCE, MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, PHARMACEUTICAL NELIGENCE, Uncategorized

World Health Organization’s Statement Raises Concerns Over Medical Malpractice and Pharmaceutical Errors in South Florida

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The World Health Organization made a startling claim this week regarding pharmaceutical error and medical malpractice in Central and South Florida.

According to the Reuters article, Liam Donaldson of the World Health Organization cited the following findings:

1- Individuals are more at risk from medical error than from flying.
2- The chances of medical error are “1 in 10” and the possibility of death is “1 in 300”.
3- 1.7 million infections in the U.S. are acquired in hospitals, leading to 100,000 deaths.
4- “Medication errors are common”.
5- The medical industry is in dire need of advanced technology and an increase in the amount of personnel to operate it.

Due to these alarming statistics, Mr. Donaldson believes that the state of medical care can not remain as it is and is in need of serious improvement. In an effort to minimize the quantity of medical errors and malpractice the World Health Organization has created a surgical safety checklist which could prevent 500,000 errors if used by hospitals. Our hope is that more hospitals in South Florida utilize this checklist and other protocols to prevent pharmaceutical errors and medical negligence thereby ensuring every patient’s safety.

| Gary T. Lazarus | 0 Comments | HOSPITAL NEGLIGENCE, MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, PHARMACEUTICAL NELIGENCE, Uncategorized

South Florida Hospital Sued for Malpractice for Brain Damage to Baby

St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida is being sued by a pregnant woman for injuries her baby suffered when the hospital mistakenly gave the woman a drug which speeds up labor. The Miami Herald reports that the woman, Tesome Sampson, gave birth two months early and her baby suffered brain damage as a result of the drug. She and baby’s father, Frank Guy, filed suit for negligence against the hospital, its owner Tenet Healthcare, and other hospital personnel, claiming $3.5 million in medical costs.

In the hospital’s statement, it apologized and acknowledged that Sampson was given the wrong medication, and that the mistake was “an unfortunate error”. The drug, Prostin E2, has been approved by the FDA , and is commonly used for the termination of pregnancies and expelling uterine contents, and can be used to induce labor.

Sampson was admitted to the hospital on August 25, 2008, 24 weeks pregnant. She was put on bed rest, but ten days later was given the wrong drug and suffered severe cramps. Sampson was given a portable toilet, where the baby was delivered.

Hospitals are not impervious to error. In 1999, an Institute of Medicine study found that about 98,000 people die every year from medical errors. These errors can be attributed to a number of factors such as miscommunication or failure of communication between hospital personnel and inefficient safety systems. Human error also plays a part, sometimes due to hospital staff work long hours.

However, the consequences of such mistakes can be life-altering, or even lead to death. Our firm has handled cases such as this where a careless error, one that could have been easily avoided, has taken the most precious of life away- a child. Furthermore, medical errors can attribute to millions of dollars spent on additional care needed to treat medical errors, rehabilitative treatment, increased medical malpractice insurance costs, and litigation expenses. Hospitals must do their part at all levels of administration to implement appropriate measures to ensure safety of their patients.

| lazaruslaw-2 | 0 Comments | HOSPITAL NEGLIGENCE, MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, Uncategorized

South Florida Hospitals Fined for Lack of Specialists in ER Care.

In 2006 Palms West Hospital and St. Mary’s Medical Center failed to appropriately treat a child who was bleeding into the brain after being hit by a softball. As a direct result, the State of Florida has fined both St. Mary’s and Palm West Hospital hospitals and they have agreed to pay a combined meager $17,500.00 to the state. Although the settlement is a minor expense to the parent companies of Palms West and St. Mary’s, it is the largest state penalties levied against any hospital in this area over the past two years. In addition, both hospitals have changed how their emergency rooms handle emergency patients due to this and other incidents in which the hospitals failed to provide specialists in local emergency rooms.

After a thorough investigation of the incident, state inspectors fined St. Mary’s for their failure to adequately document how it handles emergency transfers from other hospitals. St. Mary’s was also was fined for their failure to provide emergency neurology services. (This was the type of specialist that was needed to render the proper treatment to the child at issue in this investigation.)

Several other local hospitals have been cited over the past five years for similar problems. In addition to fines and citations levied by the state, these patients and their families may be entitled to compensation for their injuries and /or death. Recently, another case of note is that of a Boca Raton woman who died after two hospital’s emergency rooms, West Boca Medical Center and Delray Medical Center were unable to find a neurosurgeon to render treatment to her following her stroke. Her family filed a medical malpractice suit and has received almost $2 million in a settlement.

It is clear that pursuant to state and federal “patient dumping” laws, hospitals that offer a specific service to insured and self-pay patients, also must offer the service for emergency patients. The reasoning behind this law is that hospitals that benefit financially from offering these specialists to their elective patients cannot refuse to provide them to their emergency room patients, some of whom may lack insurance coverage. This law prevents patients from being “dumped” onto other hospitals due to lack of insurance.

Lack of insurance should not determine the quality of care one receives when they are in need of emergent care in the hospital. Patients with severe and life threatening inures do not have luxury of time to shop around for the hospital that will have the necessary specialists to treat them with the degree of competence they deserve. If a patient who electively chooses a hospital for the high quality of their doctors can seek a specialist’s services, then an Emergency room patient in that same hospital should have the same right to be treated by the same high quality specialist. The practice of transferring ER patients to other hospitals at the expense of that patient’s well-being is morally repugnant and can not be justified by payment issues. This is emergent care- in many cases these patients must be attended to quickly in order to save their lives. Every second counts…their life depends on it.