When anyone seeks care at a New Jersey hospital, they place their lives in the hands of the doctors and nurses caring for them. When surgery is needed, this level of faith becomes even greater. Unfortunately, accidents and negligence do occur in hospitals, and surgical errors do happen, even leading to injury or death of the patient.
Researchers at one of the nation’s most prestigious universities have discovered high rates of “never” events in hospitals across the country. These “never” events refer to the events that should “never happen” such as surgical errors that are preventable. This research discovered that almost 10,000 of these events have occurred in the past two decades. Of these 10,000 cases, the events include surgery on the wrong body part, the wrong surgery performed, or a foreign object being left inside a patient.
Information taken from the National Practitioner Data Bank indicates that these events alone cost over $1 billion to malpractice claims. The study also discovered that there have been as many as 80,000 surgical errors over the past two decades. One third of those affected report permanent injuries, while around seven percent of patients died.
Suffering as a victim of some sort of malpractice can be devastating both physically and emotionally. Losing someone to a malpractice event can leave a family distraught and horrified. In New Jersey there are protective laws in place that patients or the surviving families of deceased patients can use to reduce the impact of these surgical errors and seek financial redress based on evidence of medical malpractice through our civil courts.
Source: newjerseynewsroom.com, “Study: “Never” surgery mistakes still happening to patients,” Bob Holt, Dec. 22, 2012
