Hospital safety stats not easy to access
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When many people feel ill or are hurt they believe the best place to be is a hospital. While much of the time this is true and medical providers can help these individuals feel better or possibly even recover completely, in other situations their actions can actually make a patient worse. In the worst cases this could result in death.
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According to one statistic, hospital –acquired infections and medical errors account for between 30,000 and 60,000 deaths each year in Canada. In fact, each year, problems at hospitals are the third leading cause of death that is avoidable. This number does not take into account the number of people who are hurt as a result of these situations, but survive.
While most would likely agree information regarding medical errors at hospitals should be shared so that patients can make educated decisions about where they want to go for treatment, it is not. There are multiple reasons why this may be the case.
The first is that it is generally in the best interest of the hospital to keep such incidents quiet. This is for a variety of reasons including making the hospital appealing to donors who have large amounts of money to share. The fact that independent reporting in hospitals is not very user-friendly or transparent is also an issue. Other times, it is possible that the hospital may not even realize that anything went wrong.
Regardless of whether medical errors that occur in hospitals are made public, if someone believes they, or a loved one, are the victim of such activity, a medical malpractice lawsuit could be appropriate. To pursue this course of action a lawyer can be of assistance.
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