Hospital Acquired Infections And Medical Malpractice: These Are GIVEN By The Healthcare Provider!

When a patient walks into a healthcare facility without and infection and walks out with an infection, or doesn’t walk out, that can be serious medical malpractice.  Infections in general are dangerous, but usually fairly easy to treat if they are caught quickly.  However, when infections are not caught quickly or are difficult to treat, they can lead to sepsis which results in amputations, nerve or vessel damage, and even death.

Some types of infections that are not easy to treat are hospital acquired infections.  They are infections that result from the healthcare provider and are given to a patient.  They could be infections that are brought into the hospital by another patient and spread in the hospital, or they could originate in the hospital and spread.

The dangerous with hospital acquired infections are that they are typically drug resistant.  You may have heard about this as the “super bug.”  The most common one is MRSA, which can kill over 23,000 people a year in the United States alone.  According to the CDC, however, if a hospital or healthcare provider follows the proper protocol for preventing infection, the risk of MRSA spreading could be largely reduced if not completely eliminated.

Thus, when a patient does get a hospital acquired infection, it is likely due to medical malpractice or medical neglect of a healthcare provider.  This means that a victim could recover compensation for his or her injuries.  In the case of amputations or worse, like wrongful death, a victim and his or her family will have a substantial case.  The pain and suffering will be immense, the medical bills astronomical, and if the patient dies the dependents will be able to recover damages from the lost salary and income that they encounter.  This could be a major medical malpractice case.