Personal Injury Attorney – Nursing Malpractice on the Rise by Tim Anderson
Posted by admin on August 20th, 2010 filed in Accident Injury Law
Over the last decade or so, the media in the U.S. have had a field day when it comes to reports detailing the number of deaths each year attributed to medical errors. The numbers are in the millions for deaths and for medication mistakes. If that doesn’t throw up a few red flags, then I don’t know what will.
Medical malpractice or medication errors (med mal) isn’t within the exclusive domain of just doctors. Nurses have similar high standards to live up to when caring for patients, and for the most part they do their jobs with skill and precision. Unfortunately, things happen and a nurse may be negligent on the job causing an oversight that leads to an injury or death. This kind of a situation is usually referred to as nurse malpractice.
Nurse malpractice is on the rise, more so over these past few years than it was previously. Many pundits point fingers at the medical system and decry the deplorable shape it is in, citing shortages in manpower as being the major reason for nurse malpractice. Keep in mind that nurse malpractice isn’t something that is done on purpose. It happens for several reasons.
A nursing shortage isn’t really news, but what happens as a consequence of a shortage may be. For instance with fewer nurses on duty, staff works longer hours (sometimes over 12 hours and double shifts) and the error factor increases dramatically. Fatigue may be a killer in a nurse’s uniform. Thanks to the shortage of RNs, non-licensed Nurse’s aides are also hired to fill the duty rosters.
The most frequently seen nurse malpractice situations deal with nurses not following doctor’s orders, performing medical procedures without the proper qualifications, giving the wrong dose of medication to someone, or giving the wrong medicine to the wrong patient and not keeping a close enough watch on a patient that needs extra care.
In the cases that I have handled, the consequences of nurse malpractice have been organ damage, death, coma, infections, cardiac arrest and a toxic reaction to drugs. None of these cases were pretty and none of them happened on purpose. They happened because of a variety of factors. Nonetheless, if a patient has been harmed by nurse malpractice, they are entitled to take legal action.
About The Author
Tim Anderson works with Atlanta Personal Injury attorney, Stephen M. Ozcomert. The firm specializes in personal injury, malpractice, motorcycle accidents, and wrongful death. To learn more about Atlanta personal injury lawyer, Stephen M. Ozcomert, visit Ozcomert.com.
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Why Hire A Personal Injury Attorney?
Before you can make a decision as to whether or not you should hire a personal injury attorney / lawyer, you first have to know what a personal injury case is.
Most people think that a personal injury claim is a car or motor vehicle accident claim. While an injury sustained in an automobile accident where another was at fault would be a personal injury claim, there are many other matters that also fall under that heading.
A personal injury attorney / lawyer handles matters where there has been a personal injury, either physical or emotional, which was caused by the negligence of another. If there was no negligence then there is no case. There must be negligence, whether intentional or unintentional, on the part of another, for a claim to be valid. In other words, you would have trouble making a case against your landlord, where you spilled water on your kitchen floor and then slipped and fell because of the water. However, if the landlord had failed to fix the plumbing under your sink and the water was on the floor because of leaky plumbing then you may, I say may, have a case. There are other variables that could come into play and you would need to seek the advice of a good personal injury attorney, in order to determin your rights.
There are many matters other than car accident matters that can many times be included under personal injury, IE: slips and falls, workplace accidents (after a workplace accident you may be covered under workers compensation or disability but you may also have a personal injury claim), injuries caused during a storm or power outage, airplane, bus and train crashes, construction accidents, fires, food poisoning, drug or vitamin overdoses, animal bites, getting beat up, robbed or otherwise injured inside or outside of a business, medical malpractice and even malpractice by an attorney.
There are many variables that can come into play in determining negligence and many times you may think that there was no negligence on the part of anyone when there actually was. I myself, know of a case where a party was struck by a car while riding a motorcycle and injured severely. He settled with the driver and the driver’s insurance company for the $100,000.00 maximum of the driver’s insurance policy. This settlement did not even begin to cover
1000
his medical bills. Some time later, a personal injury attorney, while speaking with a member of the injured party’s family, found about the case and was asked to look into it for the family. The injured party was broke and paralyzed. The attorney did some checking and then agreed that, even though the man had accepted the settlement, there might still be a case. He then hired my detective agency and another to do further research. Finally, he filed a law suit against the car driver, the drivers insurance company, the motorcycle manufacturer and others. I won’t go into the whole case, but suffice it to say that he went to trial and ended up obtaining a verdict against several of the parties, including the drivers insurance company and the motorcycle manufacturer, for several million dollars and the injured party is no longer broke. I might add that the attorney took the case on contingency and advanced, out of his own pocket, all of the expenses including court costs and investigation fees.
The point of the foregoing is that if you have been injured, you should seek the advice of a competent personal injury attorney even if you don’t think that there is anyone at fault. Only a good experienced personal injury attorney can attempt to make that determination.
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This article was written by David G. Hallstrom, Sr. for and copywrited by California Personal Injury Attorneys, a directory listing personal injury attorneys, with websites, in California. Permission is given to reprint this article provided that it is reprinted whole and unedited, that credit is given to both the author and California Personal Injury Attorneys.us and that all links contained herein are kept live and working.
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