Doctors performing wrong surgeries show why proposed medical malpractice caps will hurt patients
USA Today published an article showing that doctors performing mistake surgeries, either on the wrong patient or the wrong body part, is on the rise. These mistakes illustrate why the proposed medical malpractice caps in the senate would harm patients. Essentially, these caps would limit the amount of damages a patient on whom a mistake surgery is performed to $250,000, hardly an equitable sum in such a case.
The study found that while hospitals have implemented safety procedures such as marking the area of the body on which surgery will be performed with a large X, and requiring the nurses to do a final safety check confirming the correct patient and body part, these mistakes occur frequently enough not to ignore.
For the full article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-04-17-wrong-surgery_x.htm
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