St Christopher’s Hospital Fails after Surprise Inspection
By: Cohen, Placitella & Roth @ Feb 06, 2017
Hospitals are a group that should be held to the highest standards of care. Care can make the difference between life and death. There is no room for shortcomings or preventable errors in a hospital setting. When errors occur, patients are the victims, and the results are often tragic.
Unfortunately, a surprise inspection – the third one this year – reveals that the Philadelphia-based St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children has once again (for the third time this year) failed to meet standards.
Hospital Fails to Meet Basic Standards for Superior Patient Care
According to an article in Philly.com, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children has been faulted for a number of shortcomings over the past three inspections in 2016. These include:
- Failing to determine why four patients who underwent surgery suffered treatment-related harm; one of the patients died.
- Failing to adequately train nurses who treat patients on a form of life support known as ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.
- Failing to explain why newborns who undergo heart surgery at St. Christopher’s take an average of twice as long to recover as do newborns who undergo surgery elsewhere.
- Failing to administer the correct dose of chemotherapy to an 11-month-old patient, an error that could have been fatal.
- Failing to determine why nine patients of the hospital died after undergoing heart surgery.
What’s Next for St. Christopher’s?
Clearly, more scrutiny of the hospitals, its training of staff and nurses, and its practices is necessary. The article in Philly.com states that the hospital is in the process of developing a comprehensive plan of action to address the shortcomings and make corrections. As a note, the hospital has also stopped performing heart surgeries for the time being, and will not begin performing heart surgeries again until after the results of an internal review are available.
Your Right to High Quality Care
At the law offices of Cohen, Placitella & Roth, P.C., we strongly believe in a patient’s right to high quality care, regardless of your age, health history, condition, income level, gender, race, or religion. Unfortunately, patients are too often denied the care that they really deserved based on errors in hospital policies and practices, a lack of resources, and human error.
When someone suffers preventable harm as a result of one of the examples of negligence listed above, they have the right to seek compensation for their losses. If your child has been harmed during hospital care, you should take legal action.
At our law offices, our experienced Philadelphia medical malpractice attorneys care about you. We will work hard to get you the compensation that you deserve and protect your rights when preventable errors cause harm. To schedule a free consultation with our team today, call us now or contact us online.
