Imagine going into the hospital for a minor medical procedure. It’s an outpatient operation, but you end up staying overnight because of complication. That’s fine, there was no way for the medical providers to know you had an allergy to one of the medications being used.
You stay a few days for monitoring, but then you realize your arm is extremely sore near the surgical site. What’s happening? After running several tests, the nurse informs you that you have an infection and that it’s resistant to the antibiotics they wanted to give you.
There are times when it’s okay to sue a hospital, and one of them is if you end up with a staph infection or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. This staph infection is antibiotic-resistant and can lead to serious health-related issues like blood infections and sepsis.
While not all cases of MRSA are a result of negligence, it’s more likely that you’ll contract it in a negligent hospital. Why? If a hospital employee isn’t taking time to clean the rooms and equipment well before use, then they could be responsible for infecting the patient. Failing to properly care for patients who contract infections or to sterilize surgical equipment is also negligent and a possible cause for a lawsuit.
MRSA is generally resistant to antibiotics and many of the cleaning supplies used in hospitals. That’s why equipment is cleaned in specific ways. Bleach, for instance, can kill staph bacteria, but only at the right concentrations. Antimicrobial copper may also destroy MRSA by disrupting the bacteria’s ability to mutate and breed.
Source: FindLaw, “When to Sue a Hospital for MRSA or Other Staph Infections,” Christopher Coble, Esq., accessed Oct. 05, 2017