Thousands of California patients are being injured each year due to botched care in medical facilities. Most of the injuries could have been avoided, leaving lawmakers to question whether hospitals should be reimbursed for inadequate care.

Disturbing facts

A recent Los Angeles Times article, reported that about a 100 California residents are injured every month at hospitals in the state due to medical mistakes. That’s 1,200 errors every year – many of which were the result of pure carelessness. Here are a few of the examples reported by the Times:

• November, 2007: Technicians at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz unintentionally placed a CT scan of one patient into the electronic file of another, leading physicians to remove the wrong person’s appendix.
• July, 2007. A patient at the UC San Diego Medical Center died after a nurse incorrectly programmed a medicine pump that then delivered more than twice the appropriate dose of a specialized blood pressure drug.
• March, 2007. An elderly patient died at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in Pomona after a nurse gave her two drugs, neither of which her doctor had prescribed.

In addition, from July 2007 to May 2008, hospitals reported that:

• 466 patients developed bedsores so severe that the dead skin formed a crater or rotted through to the muscle or bone.
• 145 patients had foreign objects such as surgical equipment left in their bodies.
• 41 surgeries resulted in doctors performing the wrong procedure or operating on the wrong body part.

Required reporting

California now requires hospitals to disclose information on 28 different types of substantial injuries that have occurred at their facilities. The numbers reported above have prompted lawmakers to propose legislation (AB 2146) that bans providers from billing patients or insurers when they have made an avoidable mistake (which are being called ‘never events’) such as operating on the wrong person, prescribing the wrong drugs or leaving foreign objects inside a surgery patient.

It is estimated that over 100,000 people die each year due to medical malpractice, but few bring lawsuits to seek compensation for which they may be entitled. If you’ve been injured by medical malpractice and would like to speak with an experienced attorney about your situation, please click here.