AboutGlenn A. Dorfman Expertise Twenty-four years experience in personal injury, medical malpractice and medical product liability law. Practice currently concentrated on the diet drug (fen-phen) litigation. Qualified to answer all questions regarding injuries and the law, except for worker`s compensation.
Question I had a heart attack 8/10/08 they installed two stints and on the 7th day in CICU I developed a fever and it was diagnosed as staph, I remained in hospital for 4 more weeks 24/7 being treated for staph, with 4 weeks at home iv for staph. Ortho surgeon removed membrane from knee and hip and severed nerves in process ,leg still not fully healed, at great additional expense to me. do I have a case to recover staph infection expenses?
Answer Any medical malpractice case involves something called the "standard of care". The standard is set low in most instances however. In other words, a doctor or hospital can act in a minimally acceptable way although far short of the optimal level of care and when someone gets injured by the minimally acceptable way but arguably could have been fine if give optimal care, the patient loses the case. The standard of care for hospitals to prevent MRSA (staph) infections used to be non-existent. It is gradually rising because they are finding that these infections can be prevented. In at least 30% of the cases, the patient already has staph on their skin and in the course of procedures at the hospital, the infection gets inside and wrecks havoc. This can be prevented by screening all incoming patients but this is still rarely done. If personnel at the hospital changes gloves, washed hands, and all surfaces cleaned frequently, people would not get MRSA. So again, the bar is rising. My advice is that you go into google and just search for MRSA Staph Infection Lawsuit. You will find many articles. See if you can find an article that mentions a lawyer in your State or locality. Contact that person with your story. Good luck
