Imagine losing a loved one, or even your own life, due to medical negligence? “Medical malpractice is professional negligence by act or omission by a health care provider in which the treatment provided falls below the accepted standard of practice in the medical community and causes injury or death to the patient, with most cases involving medical error”. (Orthopedic Expert Witness , 2015) Unfortunately, it happens very often.
I found a story about a patient that died after being administered the wrong medication. Loretta Macpherson died at an Oregon hospital after being given the wrong medicine. She went to St. Charles Bend’s emergency room with anxiety symptoms and concerns about the medications she was taking after recent brain surgery …show more content…
Ben Hopkins of Bend, who worked as an anesthesiologist for St. Charles for 22 years before retiring a few years ago. Hopkins said he thinks it’s a bad practice to leave patients alone in a room while medication is being administered intravenously. Even if it’s something as innocuous as an antibiotic, he said people could still have deadly allergic reactions. If the door had to be closed, someone should have been in the room with Macpherson. “I just don’t think it’s wise to leave somebody in a closed room where they can’t call for help while a medication is being administered,” he said. (Bannow, …show more content…
In a few recent cases, nurses have found themselves facing criminal charges and even jail terms for medication errors that have resulted in patient deaths. However, it is not uncommon for nurses to get no charges. In my opinion, this is unbelievable! Sure accidents happen, but when dealing with people’s lives, you should use extreme caution.
Studies show hundreds of thousands of people die every year in the U.S. due to hospital errors, although it's not clear how many of those cases involve drug mix-ups like this one. A report published in the Journal of Patient Safety last year says the number of deaths due to preventable hospital errors ranges from 210,000 to 400,000 people each year. (Goguen, 2015)
In this case, the nurse failed to follow several safety protocols. The nurse would have had to ignore nearly all of the safety protocols in place for administering drugs,
I found a story about a patient that died after being administered the wrong medication. Loretta Macpherson died at an Oregon hospital after being given the wrong medicine. She went to St. Charles Bend’s emergency room with anxiety symptoms and concerns about the medications she was taking after recent brain surgery …show more content…
Ben Hopkins of Bend, who worked as an anesthesiologist for St. Charles for 22 years before retiring a few years ago. Hopkins said he thinks it’s a bad practice to leave patients alone in a room while medication is being administered intravenously. Even if it’s something as innocuous as an antibiotic, he said people could still have deadly allergic reactions. If the door had to be closed, someone should have been in the room with Macpherson. “I just don’t think it’s wise to leave somebody in a closed room where they can’t call for help while a medication is being administered,” he said. (Bannow, …show more content…
In a few recent cases, nurses have found themselves facing criminal charges and even jail terms for medication errors that have resulted in patient deaths. However, it is not uncommon for nurses to get no charges. In my opinion, this is unbelievable! Sure accidents happen, but when dealing with people’s lives, you should use extreme caution.
Studies show hundreds of thousands of people die every year in the U.S. due to hospital errors, although it's not clear how many of those cases involve drug mix-ups like this one. A report published in the Journal of Patient Safety last year says the number of deaths due to preventable hospital errors ranges from 210,000 to 400,000 people each year. (Goguen, 2015)
In this case, the nurse failed to follow several safety protocols. The nurse would have had to ignore nearly all of the safety protocols in place for administering drugs,