Hospitals are places we go for healing. Unfortunately, some patients end up getting an infection. Are these hospital-acquired infections normal?
While they’re common, they shouldn’t be seen as inevitable. These infections are often preventable.
Hospitals have a responsibility to do everything they can to protect patients.
What Are Hospital-Acquired Infections (HAI)?
These infections develop while a patient is receiving medical care in a hospital or healthcare facility.
They’re not present when a patient is admitted but appear during the course of their stay or even after they go home. According to a study published in the National Library of Medicine, about 4% of patients will develop a HAI.
These can include:
- Urinary tract infections (UTIs): These are linked to catheters. They can cause pain, fever, and serious complications if left untreated.
- Surgical site infections (SSIs): These develop at the site of surgery. They can range from mild skin infections to deep tissue infections that require additional treatment.
- Pneumonia: Patients on ventilators or those bedridden for long periods can develop serious lung infections.
- Bloodstream infections (BSIs): These often occur from IV lines or central catheters. Sometimes, this can lead to sepsis, which can be life-threatening.
- C. difficile (C. diff) infections: This is a bacterial infection that causes severe diarrhea, often after antibiotic use, and spreads easily in hospital settings.
Why Do These Infections Happen?
When you go to the hospital, you expect to get better, not worse.
There are a few reasons why hospitals can be a breeding ground for infections. These facilities treat a wide range of illnesses. That means bacteria, viruses, and fungi are everywhere. Some of these germs have become resistant to antibiotics, and they are harder to treat.
Devices like catheters, ventilators, and IV lines save lives. However, they can also allow bacteria to enter the body if not handled properly. It may sound simple, but one of the biggest culprits behind HAIs is poor handwashing. If doctors, nurses, or hospital staff don’t wash their hands properly, they can transfer bacteria from one patient to another.
This can often happen in emergency rooms where physicians are treating multiple patients at one time.
Hospitals rely heavily on antibiotics. Unfortunately, when they’re overused, bacteria can evolve and become resistant. This, in turn, can make infections harder to treat.
Does Negligence Play a Role?
While infections can be unavoidable, in many cases, they happen because of preventable mistakes.
When hospitals don’t follow proper infection control procedures, negligence may be to blame.
In an ideal world, hospitals would be completely sterile, and every healthcare worker would follow infection prevention protocols to the letter. But in reality, mistakes happen. Some of the most common ways negligence can lead to HAIs include:
- Not following infection control procedures
- Leaving medical devices in too long
- Misusing or overusing antibiotics
- Ignoring early signs of infection
If an infection is caused by negligence, the hospital can be held accountable. Pursuing a medical malpractice claim requires showing that:
- The hospital had a duty to provide a safe environment: This means following standard infection prevention protocols.
- That duty was breached: If a hospital failed to properly sterilize equipment, ignored handwashing guidelines, or didn’t isolate contagious patients, they may be at fault.
- The patient suffered harm as a result: The infection must be directly linked to the hospital’s negligence, not an unrelated condition.
- The infection caused damages: This could be extra medical bills, extended hospital stays, long-term health issues, or even death.
There have been many cases where hospitals faced lawsuits due to preventable infections. If a patient can prove that a hospital’s negligence directly caused their infection, they may be entitled to compensation.
No patient should leave the hospital sicker than when they arrived, especially because of something preventable.
While HAIs are a known risk in medical settings, they are not something we should just accept as “normal.” If a hospital fails to follow proper infection control measures, patients have every right to demand accountability.
In these situations, the attorneys at Shrager, Sachs & Blanco can help you determine whether you might have a valid legal case.
