Fredrick Harris, an employee of the Alexandria Veterans Affairs Health Care System, has finally been suspended indefinitely after being charged in a patient death four years ago. What has Harris been doing for the last four years? Well, he was allowed to continue working.
From poorly designed rooms that increase the chance of patients falling, to loud noises and a lack of privacy, some suggest that hospitals and how they’re designed might be making patients sicker. According to a New York Times article, “hospitals are among the most expensive facilities to build, with complex infrastructures, technologies, regulations and safety codes,” but new evidence has found that we have been building them wrong. The way hospitals are currently built leads to high numbers of hospital-acquired infections, little to no privacy for patients, falling risks, loud noises, and an overall poor patient experience.
Insulin is one of those medications that is absolutely necessary for the continued health of millions of Americans. In fact, about six million of the 29 million Americans who live with diabetes require insulin just to stay alive. Unfortunately, the price for this precious medication has shot up in price over recent years. Between 2002 and 2013 alone, insulin prices “more than tripled, to more than $700 per patient.” Fortunately for consumers, we may see an end to these dramatic price hikes because a federal lawsuit has been filed against the three big insulin manufacturers, accusing them of “conspiring to raise their prices.”
After a 13-day trial in a Dallas County Courtroom where a jury heard accounts and statements from more than “a dozen patients,” Christopher Duntsch was sentenced to life in prison. Nicknamed “Doctor Death,” Duntsch was accused of “crippling four patients and causing the deaths of two others between July 2012 and June 2013” while working as a neurosurgeon for a number of different hospitals throughout Dallas and Collin counties.
It may be hard to believe, but hospitals are one of the riskiest places for picking up infections, including deadly ones. Surprising, considering the fact that hospitals are places of healing. Fortunately, steps are being taken to decrease the number of deadly hospital infections, thanks to a recent study published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, that found a solution to the problem. According to the study, doctors “should stop giving hospital patients so many antibiotics.”
Heavy mold growth was found in the linens of two University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) hospitals, leading to the death of five people since October 2014. Now a sixth wrongful death lawsuit, this one stemming from a third UPMC facility, Shadyside Hospital, was filed on Tuesday.
Christopher Duntsch, a surgeon in Dallas County, Texas, received a felony charge for botching Mary Efurd’s spinal fusion in 2012.
A new court filing has indicated that The Environmental Protection Agency may be aiding Monsanto in a cover-up.
DuPont and Chemours settle cancer-causing chemicals lawsuit.
Drug overdose calls have skyrocketed in Louisville, and national numbers are on the rise.