Hospitals are supposed to be clean, sanitary and sterile environments where patients can seek medical care. A lot of attention is paid to making sure that surgical instruments are sanitized and that hospitals have policies in place to ensure a basic level of cleanliness. Yet, USA Today still reports that one out of every 20 patients in a hospital develops an infection while getting care as an in-patient. 
Our New York City medical malpractice attorneys know that hospitals make big money off of treating infected patients and that the sicker a patient is, the more money a hospital makes. This, coupled with the number of patients who develop infections each year, raises serious questions about whether hospitals are doing all they can to keep patients safe from harm.
Superbugs Find Homes in Hospital Settings
While one patient out of 20 suffering an infection in a hospital may not seem like that many patients, the sad fact is that there are around 100,000 deaths each year resulting from infections developed in hospitals. Hospital Infection.org also estimates that another two million people develop infections in hospitals that may not necessarily be fatal but that may be painful and expensive to treat.
Unfortunately, a new wave of serious “superbugs” has developed. These “superbugs” get their names because they are resistant to traditional antibiotics and may be very hard to treat once a patient gets sick. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staph infections, are the most well-known of the superbugs but there are also others as well including:
- Clostridium difficile (C-diff), which caused 14,000 deaths in U.S. hospitals last year.
- A new “nightmare” bacteria that is resistant to antibiotic treatment and that has been identified in as many as 200 hospitals.
Unfortunately, this data shows that these superbugs, as well as other infections, are not uncommon. The consequences of these infections are very real as well. An estimated $30 billion each year is spent treating patients who get sick, and the cost of death and destroyed lives is immeasurable.
Are Hospitals Really Doing Enough?
With so many people dying or becoming ill, it is not unreasonable to ask whether hospitals are really doing all they should be in order to prevent infections. USA Today indicated that hospitals have embraced new technologies to try to address the serious risks of infection, including technologies that extend beyond cleaning operating rooms and surgical knives. For example, to deal with infections that spread in nooks and crannies, on bed rails and on TV remotes, hospitals are using hydrogen peroxide vapors, copper bedrails and machines that emit UV-light.
Yet, even as hospitals take steps to fight infections, it is important to remember that infections can be profitable to hospitals. Hospital Infection.org indicated that a patient pays as much as $15,275 extra to a hospital on average when an infection develops. With two million infections a year times $15,275, can hospitals really afford to give up $30.5 billion in profits?
To ensure hospitals do all they can to fight infection, they must be held accountable through medical malpractice claims when a patient gets sick due to a failure on the hospital’s part. This will create a financial incentive to really step up their infection-fighting efforts rather than to embrace the status quo and continue to make money off of patient’s contracting preventable hospital infections.
The Law Offices of Nicholas Rose, PLLC offers free consultations. Call 1-877-313-7673.
Additional Resources:
New York Birth Injury Lawsuit Victory Nets $130M Verdict, New York Injury Lawyer Blog, May 8, 2013.
