Hospital Negligence

When we go to a hospital or medical center, we are very reliant upon the expertise of the staff to provide us with safe care. While physicians may orchestrate the medical care, it is incumbent upon the support staff to carry though the physicians’ orders and provide patients with assistance throughout the course of their admission.

Every patient deserves to receive medical care in a clean and well-run hospital. However, at some hospitals, there simply is a broken system where errors result in harm to the patient.  Examples of systematic hospital errors include:

• Administering the wrong medication
• Performing the wrong medical procedure on a patient
• Allowing bed sores or pressure sores to develop during an admission
• Failing to follow physician orders
• Using outdated or broken equipment (wheelchairs, beds, tables, ect.)
• Failing to protect patients from physical harm from intruders or staff
• Giving patients the wrong food

In addition to errors due to inadequate hospital policy, the negligence of individual staff members such as nurses and orderlies may cause or contribute to a patient injury. Examples of individual staff negligence that commonly translates into serious injury or death of the patient includes:

• Dropping patients
• Failing to provide assistance during transfers into and out of bed
• Improperly drawing blood
• Pushing patients in wheelchairs into walls and elevator doors

One of the largest safety issues that hospitals have is preventing patient falls. A study done by the Flex Monitoring Team showed that falls account for 84% of all inpatient incidents. 30% of these hospital falls are thought to result in serious injuries. These falls happen often to negligence on the part of the hospital including:

• Inadequate assistance devices for the patient
• Not preparing for medication side-effects
• Inattentive or understaffed medical team

Patients that are fall victims in the hospital tend to have longer stays and larger medical bills. The total medical costs are 60% higher for those who have a fall in the hospital and it is expected that these costs will reach over $54 billion!

Even if the circumstances regarding a patient’s injury during a hospitalization are unclear, Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers will investigate the matter and provide you with answers surrounding the incident. Once there is some clarity regarding the facts, we can then work with the hospital’s risk manager on a settlement or proceed to a lawsuit against the medical institution and its employees.

Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers handles hospital negligence cases on a contingency basis in Chicago and other cities within Illinois.  While many attorneys understandably shy away from Illinois medical malpractice cases as simply being too difficult and time consuming, every lawyer in our office has experience both settling and trying medical negligence cases. We are not afraid to go the distance for your case.