Over 1,000,000 Preventable Deaths A Year Are Due to Medication Mistakes
By: Wendy Moyer | Posted: 22nd April 2010
On March 5, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) reported that a nursing home in Wadena was blamed for administering the wrong medication to three of its residents. And because of these medication errors, the three residents were sent to the emergency room. Within several days one of the patients died.
Shortly before MPR brought this information public the Minnesota Department of Health released the records of their investigation of the nursing home involved in this tragedy - Fair Oaks Lodge in Wadena. Their report showed that the medication in question was inappropriately distributed between May 27, 2009 and June 12, 2009.
One of the residents got his medication at the wrong time. The other two were given medications that should have been given to someone else.
One of the people who got the wrong medication was hospitalized on June 1, 2009. Three days later this woman, who had Alzheimer's, was taken off life support. She died a couple of days thereafter.
The medical records indicated that the wrong medication had caused her blood pressure to drop and that she also had contracted pneumonia.
According to the Minneapolis-St Paul Star Tribune, the facility's administrators attempted to attribute the misdeeds to "a single employee who made an error." However, the Minnesota Department of Health's investigation showed that four staff members of Fair Oaks Lodge were involved and were blamed for these errors.
Their investigation "indicated a systems failure on the part of the facility" and found them responsible for neglect. Unfortunately situations such as this are all too common.
There Are Over 1,000,000 Preventable Deaths A Year Due to Medication Mistakes
Over 1,000,000 deaths and injuries occur in the United States every year because of medication mistakes and prescription errors. Although these errors are considered to be preventable many long term care facilities and nursing homes do not take the necessary precautions to prevent these avoidable and sometimes fatal accidents from occurring.
As the baby boomer generation gets older, nursing home abuse is a becoming an even faster growing concern. All too many families who have entrusted nursing homes with the care and well being of their loved ones are finding that some of these facilities are doing much more harm than good.
If you feel that someone you care for has suffered because they have been given the wrong medication or if they have suffered abuse in any other way the people or corporate entities that area responsible should pay for their neglect. It is possible that your loved one may be entitled to a personal injury settlement.
If you have any questions you may want to contact a law firm that specializes in medical malpractice and nursing home abuse. A simple search on the World Wide Web will yield a considerable number of law firms that you can contact.
------
And to find out more about a personal injury settlement, go to => http://www.sokolovelaw.com/
Wendy Moyer on behalf of Sokolove Law.This article is free for republishing
Printed From: http://www.goinglegal.com/over-1000000-preventable-deaths-a-year-are-due-to-medication-mistakes-1514163.html
Back to the original article
Tags: wrong time, medical records, emergency room, department of health, necessary precautions, medication errors