In the medical field, there is something referred to as a “never event.” These are things that should “never ever” happen in the medical profession. A few of the better known “never events” are leaving an instrument or sponge in the body of an individual after a surgery, performing the wrong procedure because of mixed up papers, performing the procedure on the wrong side of the body, or performing on the wrong patient. These major mistakes can ruin a person’s life and cause extreme devastation and difficulty for that individual.

Unfortunately, these “never events” happen to be common events when it comes to medical malpractice. In fact, a John Hopkins’ medical malpractice study revealed that there are approximately 4,000 “never events” that occur at hospitals all throughout the United States every day. This averages out to about 39 instances where a person has a retained foreign body in his or her body after surgery every single week. As well, 20 times a week a patient receives the wrong procedure. 20 time a week a patient also receives a wrong site surgery, meaning that he or she will need to go back in for additional surgery and may suffer serious health complications.

This astonishing number of mistakes reinforces something that is already known by dozens of medical malpractice lawyers: doctors make mistakes. Sometimes, those mistakes are relatively small and easily fixable. Other times, those mistakes can turn a person’s life upside down and leave to a life-long loss of enjoyment or loss of health. From 1990 to 2010 the National Practitioner Data Bank has been watching hospitals across the nation and documenting “never events.” In their study, they also documented how many patients litigated after being the victim of a doctor’s mistake.

They determined that only 9,744 of these patients asked for compensation within 10 years. 6.6 percent of these claims were because a wrongful death. About 32.0 percent of all clients who sought compensation were permanently injured after they were harmed by their “never event.” Within 10 years, the amount of personal injury claims for these horrific accidents cost the medical industry $1.3 billion. This data only discusses “never events” and doesn’t even start to tackle the issues with other medical malpractice incidents such as misdiagnosis and overmedication. There are a host of reasons that a person may believe that they have an adequate medical malpractice.

Only about 13 percent of all medical malpractice incidents have to do with operating or treating the wrong site. Still, the American Hospital Resource Center says that this means that in every hospital across America, at least one patient will have a wrong-site surgery per year. This is in a typical 300 bed hospital. This can be a serious danger because it means that every single patient is at risk to a wrong site surgery and one will almost inevitably become victim to this horrible problem. When a wrong site surgery has to do with a vital organ, it can be a serious problem. For example, if a person needs to have a lung worked on, and the surgeons perform the lung removal on the wrong lung, then that person may need to suffer with one improperly working lung or die.

One of the reasons that medical malpractice lawyers encourage litigation in these matters is to teach the hospitals a lesson. They want everyone in the medical profession to understand that they can’t get away with horrible and damaging mistakes like these. By suing the hospitals and doctors, these injured patients are helping to improve the medical industry and show that patients won’t stand for dangerous and careless procedures. If you need a medical malpractice lawyer to take on your case, then you need to contact an attorney near you using this directory today!