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How does negligence lead to serious medical mistakes?

On Behalf of | Oct 29, 2022 | Medical Malpractice

Across the country, short-staffed hospitals and other medical facilities have remained a major issue for decades. Unfortunately, this issue only appears to be worsening.

Short staffing can lead to negligence, which in turn can cause numerous and serious medical mistakes to happen.

The issue of understaffed hospitals

Becker’s Hospital Review takes a look into the serious problem of understaffing in medical facilities. As mentioned, this issue is worsening over time due to various factors.

An understaffed hospital also typically has an overworked staff, as those who remain must take on the work of other people. This creates a cycle where workers burn out faster, leave at an accelerated rate, and then the remaining workers become even more overworked.

Understaffed hospitals have numerous issues related to negligence, which usually occurs because workers simply do not have the time or ability to care for all patients fairly and equally. Being overworked and often not having enough sleep can lead to mistakes that can even be deadly.

Mistakes due to negligence

Some common issues related to negligence in hospital settings include victims getting the wrong dosage or type of medication, or even missing doses. Nurses may write or read the medical charts wrong and could end up administering something that the victim is allergic to, doing them serious harm.

It can also result in medical staff not noticing potentially glaring issues that they would have otherwise been able to pinpoint far in advance if they had the proper amount of staff. Misdiagnoses also happen, which can result in improper treatment and the worsening of the actual problem.

All in all, the victim’s health can suffer greatly due to medical staff negligence, regardless of the source of negligence.