Assignment Help

December 04, 2017

What happened?

Mr. Ard a patient hospitalized as of May 20th was in bad state health wise. His complications began with nausea that later translated into pain and shortness of breath. Observing that her husband was in a lot of pain, Mrs. Ard decided to call the doctors so that they could check on him. Unfortunately she called them for a period of about 1.25 hours with no response from the medical personnel. Later that evening, someone came up and gave him some medication a move that can be considered way late. After a while, Mrs. Ard noticed that her husband was still in a lot of pain and so still called for help. Unfortunately for her, this time round no one responded to her at all hence the passing away of her husband. Having noticed that the hospital had actually neglected her husband, she decided to sue hospital on account of wrongful death caused by negligence from the hospital.

Why did things go wrong?

In the case of Mr. and Mrs. Ard, several things went wrong that led to the mess. Some of the issues of concern in the case include; The medical personnel took way too long to respond to Mrs. Ard’s call for help. This is something that we do not expect to see in the hospitals because patients are brought in so that they can get urgent care wherever they need it. It was wrong for Mrs. Ard to call for a whole 1.25 hours before anyone responded.

The same mistake is repeated when she observed that after medication her husband was still in a bad state. She continually called for help with no total response and that led to Mr. Ard’s death. His death was a direct fault of the hospital.

The nurses failed to indicate in their notes that Mr. Ard was a patient who needed immediate care. This was important because had they indicated that Mr. Ard needed close monitoring then maybe there would have been someone on the lookout in case any help was needed. The whole negligence issue could have been avoided had they done their work as expected.

It is important that any patient who has been admitted in the hospital is subjected to proper scrutiny so as to find out the real cause of their ailments. This is necessary in allowing the doctors to determine the kind of medication that the patient should receive, how long he should be admitted and the level of care and attention needed (Avraham & Schanzenbach, 2017). However in this case, things took a different turn; Ms. Florschein who was Mr. Ard’s nurse did not conduct the required complete assessment on Ard’s lung and respiratory status. This claim is supported by the fact that there were no records indicating that she had done the test.

How is it that a patient can be taken to a hospital, get admitted and then fail to get the needed tests that would determine his treatment? If at all they did not conduct the proper tests, what was used in determining the medication that he received? This is one of the gravest mistakes that any hospital could ever commit. No one is allowed to give a patient any kind of medication without first testing his samples so as to know what he or she ails from. Administering treatment without having known the cause of the disease is very risky as it can cause ones death due to wrong medication.

What were the relevant legal issues?

Different legal issues come up in the way the patient was handled. These are inclusive of; documentation is an important requirement when it comes to handling issues in the eyes of the law. On the issue of documentation, the hospital failed greatly in that there was no document to prove that the nurse had conducted the required lung and respiratory status tests.

The hospital once more failed its legal duty of having a record that indicated that Ard was a patient at risk, one who needed to be cared for at all times. This was a document needed to as to facilitate the availability of a nurse to attend to Ard.

Patient negligence is a legal offense and any hospital can be used on this ground (Nur & Siraj, 2016). In this case, the patient was neglected more than once which is very wrong; the level of negligence was so bad that it caused his death. It was Mrs. Ard’s right to bring the hospital to justice for failing to give her sick husband his rights during the time within which he was hospitalized.

Ms. Florschein committed a legal offense when she testified that she had checked up on Ard at about 6pm yet there was no record that proved that she actually did. There is no way she could claim to have done her duty yet there was no documentation that could prove that she did

How could the event have been prevented?

A lot could have been done to correct the great offense against Mrs. Ard and her family. Some of the important things that should have been done include. The hospital ought to have responded to Mrs. Ard’s call. This would have prevented the condition of the patient from worsening therefore preventing his death

The nurse assigned to him should have conducted the required tests; this was needed so that Ard would have gotten the right medication and care

Documentation would have saved the hospital from being sued. The nurses should have indicated Ard’s condition in the nurses’ notes so that he would have been assigned a standby medical personnel to attend to him.

What is your verdict?

Having more than enough prove that the hospital actually failed in its duty to Mr. Ard and his wife, my verdict is that the hospital has been found guilty on the account of patient negligence. Therefore, the hospital should pay Mrs. Ard for the collateral damages that she sustained due to the loss of her husband.

References

Nur, A. M., & Siraj, M. S. (2016). A research on “Medical Negligence: Law and Practice in Bangladesh”.

Avraham, R., & Schanzenbach, M. M. (2017). Medical Malpractice. The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 2: Private and Commercial Law, 120.