13 hospitals in the state of California have recently been taken to court for safety threats. Among them are Kaiser and the University of California, San Diego Medical Center. In total, the hospitals owe patrons about $825,000 for various medical malpractice issues. Amid the allegations are leaving foreign objects in patients and sexual assault. Oftentimes, operators place sponges into their patients when performing surgery to soak up any bodily fluids that could enter the surgical site. Yet when they forget to take these little sponges out, it can cause horrific pain, additional surgeries, and slow recovery.
Once the sponges have been soaked with blood, they blend into the color of the flesh near the surgery. In order to make sure that this doesn’t happen, doctors are supposed to count the amount of sponges that they use during the surgery before they start, and then keep a tally of how many are placed in the body as they work. After the surgery is over, a nurse is required to count the sponges as they are taken out, and count again as they are thrown away.
This way, they have counted four times for an accurate amount of sponges and made sure that the patient will not suffer the pain of having a sponge left in his or her body. This happened at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Diego recently. The hospital will need to pay $50,000 in restitution. The same situation also occurred only weeks later at a Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco. This victim will obtain $75,000.
When it comes to sexual abuse in hospitals, this is an issue taken seriously. In hospitals, people are often exposed in ways that they wouldn’t prefer in other contexts. Most patients trust their doctors and nurses, assuming that their medical training has allowed them to disassociate private parts of their body with sexual arousal. Yet there are cases where a doctor or nurse is sexually attracted to a patient, and may take advantage of the person’s vulnerable and exposed position.
Sexual abuse medical malpractice lawsuits are taken very seriously, and the medical personnel who committed the crime will most likely be fired immediately and involved in both personal injury and criminal court cases. According to a list on the California Department of Public Health website, the Chapman Medical Center in Orange County is charged with failing to protect a patient from sexual misconduct. The hospital will pay the plaintiff $75,000 for the hardship that he or she endured.
At the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco, the nurses were caught abandoning protocol when they inserted feeding tubes into patients at the hospital. The hospital will have to pay $50,000 to be split among the hurt victims. The Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno will also be forced to pay $50,000 for overdosing a patient on her medication. The victim suffered serious illness from the overdose, which administered because the nurses were not following the hospital’s instructions.
At another Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, the hospital failed to ensure the health and safety of a patient when using his or her cardiac paging system. The patient was injured due to the lack of attention, and will now receive $75,000 from the hospital in apology. At a San Joaquin Hospital, the organization was recently fined $25,000 for failing to protect a patient from slipping and falling and treating him or her adequately on the premises.
In another Murrieta hospital the nurses did not provide adequate emergency attention to a patient of failing health, resulting in the severe discomfort and endangerment of that man or woman. These are only a few of the hundreds of medical malpractice claims that appear in court on a daily basis. If you have been sexually abused, neglected, or hurt by a hospital, then talk to a medical malpractice attorney today. We can help you to develop a case that will help you obtain damages for your injuries.