Syracuse University Hospital mistakes were the focus of a 68 page report generated by the New York State Department of Health (“DOH”). The DOH is an agency charged with oversight of medical care in the State of New York, including events that may give rise to claims for medical malpractice, failure to diagnose, birth injury, infection and wrongful death. The full report is available here.
According to Syracuse hospital mistake lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., the report cited University Hospital for several violations of state regulations — one of which was an incident where a student doctor known as a “medical resident”, overseen by an unqualified attending physician, performed a complex operation on a patient’s spine because the neurosurgeon was busy in another operating room.
Syracuse surgery mistake lawyer Anthony S. Bottar, Esq., noted that the DOH, in its Statement of Deficiencies and Plan of Correction, found shortcomings in doctor performance, patient safety, quality of care and infection control practices.
In another aspect of the report, University Hospital was cited for the apparent absence of a “time out” during a surgical procedure, which is a process where surgical staff stop and verify that they have the correct patient in the operating room and are about to operate on the correct body part. The “time out” process is intended to prevent surgical errors, such as wrong-site surgery – like in 2004 – when a Syracuse surgeon about to remove a blood clot made an incision on the wrong side of an infant’s head, as well as wrong-side surgery – like in 2006 – when a Syracuse surgeon operated on the wrong side of a patient having a tumor removed from an adrenal gland. During the latter procedure, the surgeon failed to review radiological films.
Poor medical controls and oversight may also cause or contribute to a medical misdiagnosis, which we blogged about here.
To determine whether you have claim for injury, contact a Syracuse New York medical malpractice lawyer at Bottar Law, PLLC, a firm that has been representing the victims of negligence and malpractice since 1983. Our results speak for themselves. Contact us today at (833) 268-8277 or by email at info@bottarleone.com.