How Does a Hospital ‘Lose’ a Patient?

With all of the procedures and staff at medical facilities, it is hard to imagine a patient becoming lost.  Nonetheless, this happens more often than one would expect and can often have tragic results.

For example, a Pittsburgh woman suffering from dementia was routinely placed in a well-respected medical center.  The woman, left unattended, wandered onto the roof of the medical center where she remained overnight.  With temperatures dropping as low as twenty degrees that night, the woman was found dead the next morning as a result of hypothermia. 

With the recent turn in the economy, hospitals and medical centers are becoming routinely understaffed.  This is particularly so during night shifts in which many medical facilities operate on a skeleton crew.  This unfortunate reality results in patients, like the woman from Pittsburgh, receiving less than standard care. 

Mistreatment due to understaffed centers is frequent although the situation in Pittsburgh is an extreme example.  More frequently, injury comes from patients being left unattended in their rooms when an accident like a slip and fall occurs, treatment or medicines not being delivered due to oversight, or even worse, the wrong treatment or medicine is given to the wrong person. 
   
Medical facilities do face a seemingly insurmountable challenge when facing such a large number of patients while dealing with budget constraints.  Nonetheless, patients come to medical facilities to become healthier, not suffer additional injuries due to negligent care. The Pittsburgh woman’s family was ultimately awarded a large financial settlement but their family member is gone forever.  Not because of the disease she suffered from, but because of the care she received for it – or lack thereof. 
   
There is no shame involved when a medical facility lapses in care due to being understaffed or overworked.  It has probably happened to all of us from time to time.  However, when dealing in healthcare the stakes in these cases are literally life and death.

To learn more about how these cases work, I encourage you to explore my website http://www.oginski-law.com. If you have legal questions, I urge you to pick up the phone and call me at 516-487-8207 or by e-mail at lawmed10@yahoo.com. I welcome your call.