Hospital Infections Are Dangerous And Deadly

Blood infections, bacterial infections, nosocomial infections, MRSA, urinary tract infections, and many more types of infections afflict patients every day.  It is common for patient’s to enter a hospital without an infection, but then suffer from an infection contracted during hospitalization.

Experienced medical malpractice attorneys know that infections are a common risk associated with surgery; but nonetheless, medical professionals and agencies are charged with a duty to not cause preventable, foreseeable harm.  Simply put, if your infection was caused by the negligence of a medical professional, you have a right to seek compensation in a court of law.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has conducted various surveys including ones seeking to determine the prevalence of healthcare-associated infections.  The results were eye opening.

The report discloses that one in every twenty-five hospital patients each day falls victim to a hospital born infection.  Moreover, 75,000 patients died from while in the hospital and when suffering from a hospital born infection.  The total number of healthcare associated infections during 2011 reached an estimated 721,800 patients broken down into the following categories: pneumonia, gastrointestinal illness, urinary tract infections, primary bloodstream infections, surgical site infections, and other infections.

The problem has been so serious that New York legislators enacted Public Health Law 2819 into law which requires hospitals to reports hospital born infections to the department of health.  Mandated reporting does not mean that hospital born infections will decrease; on the contrary, they are still very much a problem.

In fact, during 2012, New York hospitals reported, to the Department of Health, infections in a total of 12,523 cases.  Over 9,000 of which were acquired among inpatient patients.  The remaining cases of infections were contracted at the point of a surgical site on the body.  Colon surgery saw the most cases of acquired infections, followed by hysterectomy surgery, hip replacement surgery, coronary bypasses, and donor sites.

Civil courts are equipped with understanding litigation based on medical malpractice.  Common law and statutory laws often guide doctors in making medical decisions. Additionally, the medical profession itself promulgates the standards by which medical professionals must care for patients.  Not only doctors can be liable for your infection, but so too can nurses, aids, anesthesiologists, even the hospitals themselves can be held accountable for your infection.  In short, any medical professional who owed the patient a duty to prevent the type of harm that ended up being caused to the patient may be held accountable.

An experienced medical malpractice attorney will prove that the medical provider owed you a duty of care, breached that duty, and will show how that breach was the direct, natural, and uninterrupted cause of the patient’s injuries.

But what do you think?  I would love to hear from you!  Leave a comment or I also welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@fishermalpracticelaw.com.  You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.