At health care facilities, such as hospitals and rehabilitation centers, nurses have a vital role in the care of patients. Thus, when nurses engage in negligent conduct when caring for patients or facilities fail to provide their nurses with proper training, patients can suffer greatly. Losses of life sometimes even occur as a result of nursing errors.
Recently, a wrongful death case from another state involving an alleged nursing error was settled.
The case involved a rehabilitation center in Virginia. In March 2013, a woman was transferred to the center after a stay at a hospital, according to the woman’s family. The family said that, a couple of days after the woman was transferred to the center, a nurse, in response to the orders of a physician, removed a nutrient/fluid/medicine tube that was inserted in the woman’s neck. The family alleged that the nurse erroneously thought that the tube was a peripherally inserted central catheter when it was actually a central line. According to the family, this resulted in the nurse not using the proper procedures when removing the tube, which in turn caused the woman to suffer complications that led to her death.
The woman’s family sued the rehabilitation center in relation to these allegations of nursing negligence. The center and the family recently reached a settlement. Under the settlement, the rehabilitation center will make a payment of around a half a million dollars.
When an individual dies at a rehabilitation center or some other type of health care facility here in Illinois, one of the major questions the deceased’s family might have is: was the death inevitable or was it the result of errors by nurses, doctors or other medical care providers? Medical malpractice attorneys can conduct the deep investigations that are often necessary to determine if nursing negligence or other medical negligence contributed to a given patient’s death. If medical negligence was responsible for a person’s death, options for monetary recovery may be available to the victim’s family.
Source: The Roanoke Times, “Richfield Recovery and Care Center pays out settlement over death,” Laurence Hammack, March 24, 2014