HEALTHCARE ISSUES
We live in an age and society of significant governmental protection and bureaucracy, which sometimes creates a false sense of safety or security. If a product, medicine, or service is offered for sale, we may falsely assume that it must be safe and approved or else it wouldn’t be offered to the public. There have been some examples in recent months of the dangers and potential consequences that still confront the average patient or consumer. For example, a study just released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ordered by Congress, found that 9 out of 10 nursing homes lacked adequate staffing to properly care for residents’ needs and health. The study found that nursing homes with a low ratio of personnel to patients were more likely to provide substandard care and residents in these homes were more likely to suffer from bedsores, malnutrition, weight loss, dehydration, pneumonia, or serious infections. Dr. John Schnelle, one of the authors of the report, stated that recommendations were for a nursing home to have one nurse’s aide for every five or six residents but that it is currently common to find staffing of only one aide for every eight to fourteen residents. If understaffing at a nursing home results in injury or death to a resident, the civil justice system is one means to hold healthcare providers responsible for their negligence and to improve the level of care for others.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which evaluates and accredits hospitals nationwide, reported a rise last year in "wrong-site" surgery, in which doctors operated on the wrong part of the body or on the wrong patient. The data was obtained through voluntary reports and patient complaints, which indicates that the actual extent of the problem may be much greater that was voluntarily disclosed. Obviously, such errors are negligent and should be completely preventable.
Another example of preventable injury was the deaths earlier this year in Rhode Island of two women at a hospital who were given nitrous oxide instead of oxygen during surgical procedures. This problem has occurred often enough that the U.S.F.D.A. has issued a public health advisory "Guidance for Hospitals, Nursing Homes, and Other Health Care Facilities," which outlines how to avoid mistakes as to medical gases or mix-ups with industrial grade gases. The tragic results in these situations are inexcusable.
Baxter International, a company which manufactures filters for dialysis equipment, has finally acknowledged that a chemical residue accidentally left on its filters in the manufacturing process, was responsible for the deaths of at least 53 patients so far. For weeks, the company denied any connection between its product and the deaths. The patients and their families, who relied on dialysis to save their lives, experienced just the opposite. In such situations, where government regulation and corporate quality control have failed or been absent, the tort system of justice, accountability, and damages is the last means of compensation and prevention.
In Illinois, the state Supreme Court has affirmed that a Wal-Mart pharmacy had a duty to either warn the patient or her doctor that a prescribed drug was likely to produce serious injury or death because of its known reaction to the patient’s allergies. The purpose of requiring pharmacists to counsel with patients about prescriptions, which is required in South Carolina as well, is to avoid mistakes and errors in drug reactions or inappropriate prescriptions. This also prevents giving a patient the wrong drug for their medical condition, which happens through pharmacist negligence as well as physician errors.
The legal system provides compensation to those injured through pharmaceutical errors but patients themselves can help avoid the mistakes of others by knowing what drugs they are taking and what they are for. Always read the labels on any prescription and be sure the pills in the bottle match the label. Check with your pharmacist or doctor if you have any question about what you are taking or its purpose or side effects.
