Death By Medical Error

Last year, a patient of mine came to my office and told me about his brother in Florida, who was scheduled to have a diseased kidney removed.  The next week, my patient told me that the surgeon, who performed the procedure, removed the healthy kidney in error instead of the diseased one and my patient's brother died.  Mistakes like this just can't continue to happen.  

With our highly advanced modern technology and medical knowledge, it is unacceptable that about  440,000 people die every year because of preventable medical errors.  This data is from numResearch.

That is equivalent to almost the entire population of Atlanta, Georgia, dying from a medical error each year. Preventable medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States and cost our country tens of billions of dollars a year, in addition to all of those lives.  There is no valid excuse for it.  Every one of those 440,000 had loved ones who also suffer and they were robbed of whatever years that they had left.

These individuals did not die from side effects of a drug, that is a whole other category.  They died from human error.

It is unbelievable that despite this serious epidemic, corporate front groups are working hard in the U.S. Congress and state legislatures throughout the country to limit accountability and access to the civil justice system, when patients are harmed or killed by medical error.  How about working hard to stop these preventable catastrophes from occurring to begin with?

The civil justice system gives families of patients who have died or have been injured by medical error, an avenue to seek accountability. It also provides an incentive to health care providers to improve patient care. Removing that accountability and incentive leaves people at risk for more injuries from negligent care.

The Facts From numResearch :

• 440,000 patients die every year from preventable medical errors. [Journal of Patient Safety]
• Preventable medical errors cost our country tens of billions of dollars a year. [Institute of Medicine]
• One in three patients who are admitted to the hospital will experience a medical error. [Health Affairs]
• Studies of wrong site, wrong surgery, wrong patient procedures show that “never events” are happening at an alarming rate of up to 40 times per week in U.S. hospitals. [Archives of Surgery]
• Medical negligence lawsuits amount to just one-half of one percent of all health care costs. [Congressional Budget Office]
• Medical negligence cases represent well under 2% of all civil cases. [National Center for State Courts]
• Researchers at Harvard University found that 97% of cases were meritorious, concluding, “Portraits of a malpractice system that is stricken with frivolous litigation are overblown.” [New England Journal of Medicine]

Federal Legislation:

In the 112th Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "Help Efficient, Accessible, Low Cost, Timely, Health Care (HEALTH) Act of 2011" (H.R. 5) on March 22, 2012. This bill aims to take away the legal rights of injured patients, removing any incentives to improve patient safety and leaving people at risk for more injuries from negligent care. This bill would impose one-size-fits-all caps on damages, not just when injured by medical negligence, but also defective drugs, medical devices, or abuse suffered in nursing homes.

This bill protects negligent health providers and takes away the rights of injured patients. Opposition to H.R. 5 has ranged from patient safety groups to conservative legal scholars and elected officials

The only way that we can protect ourselves is to demand from state and federal  lawmakers that there be significant deterrents that will protect the public, not give protection to those who commit gross negligence.  

For More Information:

http://www.takejusticeback.com/MedicalErrors