Virginia Medical Malpractice Blog - Williamson & Lavecchia, L.C.

CBS 60 Minutes Story on Medication Errors

Last night CBS broadcast a shocking report on medication errors.  It did not happen at a rural hospital or to the underprivileged.  It happened at Cedar-Sinai, the hospital of the stars in Los Angeles, to actor Dennis Quaid's children.  His infant twins were prescribed Heparin which is a common blood thinner.  Instead of being given pediatric doses, they were administered full adult strength Heparin which was 1000 times stronger than prescribed.  These children began to bleed out of their bandages, out of their belly buttons and even had blood "squirting" out of their bodies.  Fortunately the children survived and hopefully they are not permanently injured.  Right now their prognosis is promising.  To say they are lucky is probably an understatement.  We have successfully pursued wrongful death cases where the victim died from overdoses of blood thinners. 

Medical malpractice is unbelievably common.  According to CBS: "Chances are you probably know someone who has died, or nearly died, because of medical mistakes in a hospital. It's much more common than most people realize, and if it can happen to the children of movie star, at one of the finest hospitals in the country, it can happen to anyone."  In fact, every year 100,000 Americans die from medical malpractice.  It would take 100s of commercial airplane crashes to equal the preventable deaths by medical malpractice.  So where is the uproar?  That's a question I can not answer. 

We believe that holding hospitals accountable for medical malpractice is not just morally sound, it creates a financial incentive for them to provide better care.  In other words, it is cheaper to institute safeguards to prevent medical malpractice than to defend medical malpractice claims and to pay settlements and judgments. 

If you or a loved one is a victim of a medication error, please contact us to discuss your legal rights.

Sincerely yours,

Josh Silverman

Labels: blood thinner, Heparin, medical malpractice, Medication error,