Hospital Mistakes, By the Numbers

Some people think I'm lying when I say I worked in a Pharmacy (In the USA) that didn't have hot water for almost a year. I am dead serious! And I only worked there a year, the place may have been without hot water for a lot longer than that. If I weren't still looking for a job I'd post the name and address of the place. But this isn't a big city and I'm afraid of repercussions.

The last pharmacy I worked in we had to wash our hands in COLD water for ALMOST A YEAR before the corporation decided to install a water heater!! NO LIE. The bathroom didn't have hot water either. Scary huh? Corporations don't care about your health.

Healthcare, as a career choice, isn't a decision to be taken lightly. When you think of healthcare as a business, the patient is your customer. You have to make decisions daily that have a direct impact on your customer's very life as they have willingly placed their life in your hands at their most vulnerable of moments. Very few patients understand what is happening to their body in the midst of a medical crisis and depend on someone else to take the helm. Like the passengers on an airplane you expect the pilot to "do their job" and bring you in for a safe landing. "Sully" Sullenberger had the lives of his passengers in his hands - thank goodness he was on his best game that day when things went bad. Like a healthcare provider, a pilot isn't allowed to be off his game. But, it goes deeper in that, as a healthcare provider you are supposed to forsee those outside forces that can act upon the situation (no one criticizes Sullenberger for a group of geese). There is no such thing as having an off day, a bad day, a personal crisis, a distraction, a call from daycare where your child is sick - normal human stuff of this nature has to be checked at the door when you come to work. Do you realize how impossible that is and not become a heartless robot? The irony being that heart is usually what draws really great people into medicine in the first place. Schools have lowered the requirements for healtcare degrees. What used to be a 4 year degree is now 2. Then, they churn out a new crop of healtcare providers to meet the everygrowing healthcare demand - fill those jobs. By sheer statistics, can all those possess the mindset that the needs of the patient come first?

It should be mandatory that hospitals in ALL states report their mistakes, and stop the cover-up. Read Pro Publica's in depth report about the California nurse mistake/incompetence/drug use scandal; so bad that the entire nursing board was fired as well. Betting this happens in all states. No transparency to the public. Patient beware!

i wonder if i, as a patient, should have reported over the past 3 years been refused to be given, that right, i was turned away from the nurses desk every time i'm supposed to be given an anticonvulsant at the approximate times that they are supposed to be given, ALL CAUSE THEY SIMPLY HAVE NOT HAD THE TIME TO GET THOSE SPECIFIC MEDICINES ORDERED. TAKES ME TO SAY IN ORDER TO GET THEM (TO THE STAFF) "WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO BE RUNNING THE RISK OF HAVING SEIZURES BECAUSE OF NO ONE TAKING THE FIVE MINUTES TO GET THE MEDS ORDERED. thankfully, thats all it takes, cause, otherwise, i'd not like to find out yet i would anyways, how it feels like to have one from missing a dose. not something i really need or want to have.

Your link says that July 2012 will be when Medicare stops paying for preventable health problems or complications caused by hospital mistakes, but the article it links to is about MEDICAID, not Medicare.

road killed racoons, possums, 2 cats, 1 squirrel, and a few chipmunks and birds. Then I bashed all their cars with my Easton baseball bat I still have from when I played little league. Broke all the windows, all the headlights/tail-lights, and put huge dents in each fender, each quarter panel, front and rear bumpers, and the roof. I busted up the doors on the cars pretty badly. Made sure I always got the opening mechanism to come off on each door so the jag-off wouldn't be able to open it from the outside.....and finally for the coup de gras......I put a road-kill animal in each car. Made sure I smeared it over every inch of the interior so the smell would never come out. Mind you, this revenge plot took place over about a years time. I'd always do it while they were working the graveyard shift and only if there were no other cars around that could be potential witnesess. If I didn't feel safe I'd just wait till the next time. I did it over a long period of time and didn't use a pattern, that way they wouldn't be able to anticipate my next move. Got away with it to which I was pleasantly suprised. Had planned to be arrested for sure. Only reason I'm saying it now is cause the statute of limitations has run out, otherwise I'd be keeping my trap shut. I was quite proud of myself for what I had done to the a**holes who had screwed me over and ruined my life. I seriously thought about blowing their heads off with my 12 gauge but I wasn't gonna rot in jail for the rest of my life for any of them. This all occured in Pa, I live in Sc now and aint been back since taking out my revenge. Haven't seen any of those pr*cks in close to ten years, but where ever they are, I hope they are miserable, I hope they all die, and I hope they all burn for all eternity in a lake of fire. Seeing that would just make my day:-)

That being said, I despise the way RNs are treated and the way hospital administrations are able to skate around and toy with their lives and their livelihood as they please. RNs being forced to work over 100 hours a week, being forced to take care of too many patients, being forced to stay after their shift because someone decides to not come to work, being forced to accept being paid less than another RN who just graduated and doesn't even have a license yet, having their pay stagnate for the past 40 years, while every other positon in the hospital is getting raises and cost of living adjustments.....RNs aren't even getting that.....What a deplorable job. Had I known what it was really like, I would never have wasted 5 years of school getting this stupid degree. So to any potential future RNs out there, you better be prepared to deal with mountains of #$%$ and being treated unfairly, unequally, and just "un" everything. People in the hospital don't care about you, your life is meaningless to them, and they will #$%$ you over when they get the chance and will ruin your life if it is convenient for them. My advice: Get a degree in something else, being a nurse ain't worth it these days. Until they put in better laws protecting nurses and the government sees what's going on and how we are being treated(like they really give a #$%$ though). Government don't care, they got their cozy little desk jobs, their healthcare, their 401k and all their expenses being paid by taxpayers......only time they do care is come election day and nurses and healthcare workers are to small of a group to make any impact. So I forsee no improvements for nurses for at least a few decades. So if you are an RN now, I applaud you, and I also call you a little bit crazy for working this thankless job where you can have everything taken away from you if a hospital administrator decides he doesn't like the color of your shoes or if you happen to be mandated to work a 72 hour single shift (as I once was) and end up fallin asleep or making an error, cause aint a person alive who is thinking straight or rational after 72 hours of working, and then have it all taken away cause of an incompetent human resources or scheduling department that caused you to get this 72 hour shift in the first place.....they won't be blamed nor get in trouble at all....it's all gonna fall on you, you will be fired, then the state board is going to take your license away for a few years. Your life will be ruined, you won't be able to collect unemployment, you will lose your house, you will lose your car, you won't find work anywhere due to the economy, and at the age of 42, you and your husband will move into your parents basement cause his job doesn't make enough to make ends meet....that is if your parents are still alive or you have someone to turn to.....otherwise you are going to end up homeless, giving handjobs and BJs to buisnessmen just so you can feed yourself and have clothes on your back. Please ask yourself....and I'm speaking to all healthcare workers.....is it really worth the risk?? It ruined my life, happened 8 years ago and me and my wife are finally starting to get our feet back under us. Ruined 5 years of my life getting the degree, 2 years working the deplorable job, and 8 years to finally get back on my feet. So I ruined a decade and a half of my life thanks to this job....do I regret it...you bet your sweet #$%$ I do. ps.......The hospital staff responsible for what happened to me and I knew who they were.....they got their just desserts, I made sure of that. Poured some sugar in all their gas tanks, put a tampon in all their gas tanks, put a condom in all their gas tanks, put a potatoe in all their tailpipes(a symbolic gesture), then I put a gallon of transmission fluid into each of their gas tanks, and finally I poured a whole can of paint thinner in their gas tanks. After all this, I cruised some back roads and got me about 10-12 road-killed racoons

After being fired, the hospital had the audacity to call the attorney generals office on me. They wanted to screw me in absolutely any way they could. I had a clean record, had never used drugs prior to being an RN, it was the job that drove me to it. So the investigators from the narcotics division only charged me with "theft by misrepresentation" which is a felony and then that was dropped down to a simple possession charge cause the prosecutor took it easy on me cause it was my first offense. I got like a $400 fine and 3 months probation, a slap on the wrist really. I never did meet my probation officer. All I had to do was fill out a paper basically saying I was being good and not taking drugs or getting in trouble and mail it into her once a month. After about a year my record was expunged and it's now cleaner than a baby's bottom. The hospital thought it was gonna screw me and get me on a bunch of felony charges but they got screwed in the end. I had my nursing lisence suspended for 2 years but I could have cared less. I am never going back to that ungrateful ignorant job. People with power in the healthcare industry will stab you in the back every chance they get, no matter what you do for them or what sacrafices you make. They have one thing on their mind and that is themselves and how to make themselves better. They don't care nor have any empathy for any of the workers under their charge, whether it be a RT, a NA, a LPN, a PT, an OT, a pharmacy technician, a pharmacist, or the infamous RN. I have many friends from my nursing school who have gone through similar experiences in the hospitals they work at. Some with drugs, some being charged with unsafe care, others accused of abusing patients. I understand the drugs.......the friend being charged with unsafe care and being threatened to be turned over to the state board.....she was finishing up a 36 hour shift and made a medication error at the end of her shift, no-one was harmed, yet she was placed on leave and eventually fired and lost her license. What the #$%$....who the hell can say she was practicing unsafe nursing after being forced to work 36 hours? The hospital is to blame.....but they make her the scapegoat and ruin her life just because they don't want to admit any fault in the incident. My friend being accused of abusing his patients....he was accused by a patient with SEVERE dementia, a nurses aide heard the patient rambling while she was in the room...she ended up turning my friend into the unit director, who then contacted the state board about it and my friend ended up being fired and losing his license for a year over this one time limited incident. No formal investigation was ever done. No one ever talked to my friend and got his side of the story. They just chose to believe a 96 year old severely demented patient and ruined his life because of it.

I used to be an RN. Have always wondered why they got laws limiting the number of hours a truck driver can work, yet they have no laws for healthcare professionals. I remember working 16 hour shifts 3 or 4 days out of the week, only to pull a 24 hour shift the next day because someone "called off" and I was mandated. I liked my job in the beginning but the hospital I worked at was so short staffed of RN's it was ridiculous. They expected us to work miracles, meanwhile the hospital was doing nothing to recruit nurses and could have cared less about the situation we were in. All they cared about was the money. I also found it interesting that after working there 2 years, that they were hiring graduate nurses and paying them more than I was making. These nurses, fresh from school and not even certified as RNs yet, were making more money than me. That was complete bullsh*t. I even brought up the issue with HR and all they did was brush me off and just give me some bullsh*t excuse. Well, this was the straw that broke the camels back. Work started becoming such a chore to me, I hated being there and I absolutely hated my job. I would get stuck taking care of 5 critically ill patients, while in reality, the hospitals policy in the area I worked was 3:1 or 3 patients per nurse. Some days I even ended up with six patients, though this was where I drew the line and would refuse the sixth. All my superiors knew and threatened to fire me and so on and so forth. I told them to go ahead, I would be glad to walk out the door away from that hell. I knew they were bluffing though cause they'd be in deep sh*t if they went down a nurse. Finally it got so bad and started causing me so much anxiety and stress that I ended up getting hooked on pain killers and was actually fired because of this. At the meeting where I was fired, they asked my why I did it, I just laughed, gave them a smug look, and told them all to go fu*k themselves. They had created a monster within me and had also created an addict.

As a nurse, healthcare is facing a major crisis: NOT ENOUGH STAFF. One nurse can only safely take care of so many pts., handle their family members (who are anxious and sometimes too needy and downright rude) and still coordinate accurately the complexity of care required. That doesn't even address the human factor of just plain good bedside manner and being able to spend quality time with a pt. and their significant others. That went the way of the dinsosaur decades ago. Managed care has managed to line its executives pockets while leaving caregivers and pts. out in the cold.

Overworked Nurses = More Mistakes

Think about this: Only about 30 States (And DC) require Pharmacy Technicians to be trained and certified. Some States, like Colorado, do NOT regulate pharmacy technicians at all. Who actually enters your prescription in the computer, generates the lable and FILLS the prescription? You guessed it the Tech. Pharmacists check the final prescription for accuratcy and counsel the patient. Some big retailers hire untrained people, (Because they can pay them less.) call them Technicians and let them fill prescriptions. Some big retailers also pressure their pharmacists and techs to fill EVERY presciption in 15 minutes or less, including giving injections that could harm a person. Often there is just ONE pharmacist on duty from 9am to 9pm, or later. No breaks. Lunch? Maybe 15 minutes in the back of the pharmacy. If they're lucky a Tech will be available to answer the phones if not ... RING! Lunchtime's over. Safety? I worked at a retail chain pharmacy that DIDN'T HAVE HOT WATER for the Techs and Pharmacists to wash their hands. For almost a YEAR! INDIVIDUALS CARE about your health. CORPORATIONS DON'T!!

i see no article......

I think all hospitals in the usa should random drug test every single employee. How many of these errors were do to impaired professionals?

mistakes cost lives!

And the band played on.

P.s. drs. And hospitals bury their mistakes in more ways than literally.

39 yrs. As a respiratory therapist in many hospitals in louisianna,mississippi, and alabama. I witnessed the one fault of mistakes in hospitals that injure or kill patients, it is the belief of nurses that drs. Are omnipotant and know it all. They believe that because a dr. Writes an order, it is their duty to carry it out, even though they may believe it is wrong. The nurse thinks he/she is protected from guilt , because the dr, wrote the order, and he or she is obligated to follow it. The nurses believes they are protected by the written order. The dr. In turn will blame the nurse. Technician, or therapist for doing wrong, in order to protect his or her medical liscense. Drs. Lie, write orders for tests and procedures, in order to create income for the hospital and him or herself. The bottom line is always money, not patient care. The most dangerous environment you can be in , is a hospital. If you are not seriously ill when admitted, the longer your hospital stay, the greater the risk that you will become ill, or be injured. I am retired because i could no longer tolerate the acceptance of administration, for drs. That performed poorly, but generated income for the institution or company. Healthcare hit the skids, when it became the "healthcare industry". Big money corrupts everything.

I think all hospitals should report their mistakes. It would make staff think twice and think again about what they're doing because their job and their future would depend on it. This is very alarming.