Medication Mistakes in Hospitals Can Lead to Overdose

Medication errors can lead to an overdose of patients in hospitals, and these patients can suffer serious harm and losses as a result. If you overdosed or lost a loved one due to an overdose, contact a Las Vegas medical malpractice attorney. 

When we go to a hospital to receive medical care, we expect that the doctors and staff who take care of us make sure that proper procedures are being followed when they are giving us our prescribed medication. This, unfortunately, is not always the case as patients can suffer serious harm and complications due to medication errors, including overdose.

Causes of Overdose

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 841,000 people have died since 1999 from drug overdoses. In 2019 alone, 70,630 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States. The numbers are not extrapolated to indicate how many of these deaths were due to overdose at hospitals due to medical mistakes, but patients overdosing for this reason is not uncommon.

Medication overdose at a hospital can occur due to many different mistakes by a doctor, nurse, or another health practitioner. Some common medication errors include the following:

• Over-prescribing a medication
• Illegible writing that results in the wrong dosage being given
• Unknown or undisclosed patient allergies to the prescribed drug
• Unintentional wrong dosage being given due to carelessness
• Wrong or incomplete history of the patient being taken
• Failure to check and determine whether two or more drugs can be taken together
• Mislabeled drugs

Treatment of Overdose

Treatment for a patient who has overdosed at a hospital depends on a variety of factors considered, including the specific drug taken in the overdose, the patient’s history, and other factors. However, treatment can result in additional and preventable hospital bills, as well as pain and suffering for the patient.

Establishing A Malpractice Claim Based on Hospital Medication Overdose

If you or a loved one is a victim of a medication overdose at a hospital due to a mistake, an experienced attorney can assist you in obtaining compensation for any injury or pain and suffering caused by the overdose. To establish medical malpractice, we will collect information and documents to show that:

• A doctor-patient relationship exists that gave rise to a professional duty
• There was a breach of that duty
• The breach of duty caused your injury and damages.

The attorney handling your case may also retain an expert to provide testimony on what the standard of care was in your specific case, whether the hospital where the overdose occurred deviated from it, and whether the harm or death that happened was the result of that deviation.

At all times during this representation, we endeavor to make sure you are fully informed of what we are doing and progress in the case. Ultimately, our goal is to make sure you get the compensation you deserve for your overdose and the harm it caused.

A Las Vegas Medical Malpractice Attorney Ready to Help

If you have been harmed by an overdose caused by the mistake of a doctor, nurse, or another medical staff member at a hospital, or if you have lost a loved one for the same reason, Breeden Malpractice & Injury Law may be able to help you obtain compensation for injuries you have suffered. Contact our law firm for a free consultation today.