Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in Pennsylvania

Hospital Negligence
My husband was given four shots of lovenox recently while in the hospital for a hernia operation. We were unsure as to why they gave him these shots because he's never had a past history of blood clots. The hospital prescribed him to take four more doses of the drug after he left the hospital. After talking to his doctor we discovered that they mixed his medical charts up with someone else that was in the hospital at the time and he was never supposed to get the shots. After a little research, we discovered that the drug could have caused him paralisis or severe hemorage. He suffered no side effects from the drug. My questions is, can we sue the hospital for negligence in this type of situation?

Asked on 8/03/06, 9:51 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Arthur Newmark Arthur Newmark, M.D.. Esq

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Re: Hospital Negligence

From what you have said, there is no malpractice case.

You have described negligence, which is one key element in a medical malpractice case.

In order to have a case, that negligence must have caused a damage.

Assuming that your husband suffered no ill effects from this mistake, there would be no malpractice case as the carelessness apparently caused no harm.

While I do not see that a lawsuit could result in payment to you, you might want to speak with a patient representative about a number of issues:

1) Whether your husband's bill was adjusted to remove the charges for the improper medication;

2) Was the State Board of Medicine notified about the medication error?

3) Does Hospital Policy require that you be notified of this kind of error ? This may be required under state law.

4) Was the OTHER patient, who was SUPPOSED to get this medication notified of the error? (YOU CAN'T find this out due to patient confidentiality, but the State Board of Medicine does have the power to see that state law is followed regarding notification of errors.)

You also may wish to notify the State Board of Medicine yourself about the incident and pose the above listed questions. Hopefully, if you call this error to the attention of the State Board of Medicine. you may help avoid future errors.

Finally, where there is one error, there may be others. If you discover that there was an unexpected OUTCOME from this hospitalization, you may consider discussing this with a malpractice attorney.

Answered on 8/03/06, 11:05 pm

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