Folks, as you know, in Bush's State of the Union Address to the Nation, he mentioned doing away with mal-practice suits. How do you feel about this or have you given it much thought? Many times I have mentioned about the issues that at the present may not be affecting us. And then we put something into law and find ourself in a situation where the issue does affect us. What would be accomplished by doing away with the mal-practice suits? You are probably thinking that health care costs will go down because the doctors insurance that he's paying for mal-practice, he can afford to cuts prices on doctors visits.
I understand the doctors, hospitals, health care workers business, having to walk the thin line, fearing law suits. Let's say, you or a loved one was scheduled for surgery at some hospital, any town USA, for a gallbladder operation. Now, the gallbladder operation nowadays is considered a minor surgical procedure, but I have know people to die from it. You or the loved one comes out of surgery with a staph infection due to a surgical tool not being cleaned good, maybe the housekeeping department didn't clean the room good, and so forth. In some cases, the staph infection can clear up with antibiotics. In other cases, it does not clear up. So, you or your loved one dies and in most cases, the hospital is going to cover their butt in documentation and try to make it look like this patient had this infection prior to the surgery. You've got to remember, hospitals have registered nurses to constantly go through charts to correct mistakes. And then they have a doctor over the quality management who reviews the charts, not in the patients behalf but in the behalf of the hospital. This doctor knows the rules and knows what can and cannot get them sued. Now, lets say you or your loved one died and the family somehow found out that the patient died from a staph infection. How much investigation would you do, if any, and would you sue, if you thought it was the hospital or doctor or medical staff's fault?
Now, if Bush gets his way, you are going to relieve any fault of the doctor, the hospital, the medical staff of the responsibility they once had.
Remember, doctors, nurses, housekeeping, the lab, dietary department, x-ray staff, the entire hospital has something to do with you as a patient. So, keep in mind that the people that are taking care of you are human, dealing with tools and anything could go wrong because of human error, or a breakdown in a machine. It could cost you your life or cause damage for life.
Thinking points. What if central supply failed to clean a certain surgical tool real good that got used on you.
Then you would be subject to a staph infection. So many people hate OSHA but OSHA keeps these medical facilities on their toes. If you waiver law suits to such medical facilities, you have waivered your rights. Because if you're a doctor, medical facility, you are going to be a little bit more careful and be on your toes because you know you can be sued
As I have said, I know the doctors and the medical facilities have to watch out for those types that are just looking for banana peels. These are the types that I guess if you want to put the blame on anybody, these would be the types. I think the innocent people that are not looking for banana peels and just for good clean health care, should have some type of leg to stand on and be able to sue a medical facility if the medical facility is at fault or medical mal-practice. And remember, staph is in all medical facilities.
Original Post