Medication errors hurt and kill many people every year. The Institute of Medicine reports that there are 1,500,000 preventable adverse drug events per year. The conservative estimate of the costs of these errors is $3.5 billion, not including the costs such as lost earnings and the pain and suffering experienced by the victims.
These errors occur in doctor’s offices, hospitals, nursing homes, ambulatory surgery centers, and virtually every other type of health care setting.
My very first medical malpractice case over 30 years ago involved a medication error. A drug was prescribed for my client, and one of the risks of the drug was damage to the optic nerve. The health care providers failure to do a baseline eye exam and failed to monitor our client for changes in her vision. These failures caused permanent blindness in both eyes. We won this case at trial but it was later reversed on appeal because of an error in the jury instructions. The case was settled shortly before a second trial.
We continue to see claims arising from medication errors. In one case, a physician prescribed two drugs to a child. One drug impacted the effect of the other drug, and as a result one of the drugs built-up in the child’s body and resulted in horrible brain damage. In that case, we made a recovery against the prescribing physician and the pharmacy that filled the prescriptions.
If you or a loved one have been injured as a result of a prescription drug error, please call us at 866-812-8787 for a free consultation. We accept this type of case on a contingent fee basis.