Poor Sanitation

Hospital emergency rooms are busy places, and this means that emergency departments often have a great deal of bio hazardous material present. Nurses may be taking blood samples or processing syringes. Patients may be ill or bleeding. In all these situations, proper hygiene and sanitation is vital. Poor hygiene often leads to infections and other serious complications.

Unfortunately, while it is a widely known fact that washing hands and practicing other good hygiene techniques is a vital, in some cases medical staff are negligent in providing a clean and safe environment. If you have suffered an infection or other serious complication due to poor hygiene in a hospital or medical facility, you may have a personal injury claim. Compensation from your claim can help pay for lost wages, medical costs, and other expenses related to your injury. If you would like to know whether you have a claim, contact the Flaxman Law Group to arrange for a free accident consultation to discuss your situation with a personal injury attorney.

There are many types of poor hygiene practices that can be found in hospitals and emergency rooms:

• medical staff not washing hands before dealing with a new patient
• incorrect disposal of bio hazardous materials, syringes, blood, tissue, and other matter
• incorrect sanitization of shared imaging and diagnostic equipment
• reuse of medical devices that should not be reused
• overflowing garbage or disposal baskets
• unchanged sheets and pillows on hospital beds
• bed bugs or other infestations
• unchanged bandages, dressings
• outbreaks of superbugs and other communicable diseases – and incorrect responses to these outbreaks
• unclean washrooms and bedpans
• lack of sanitizer or hand washing areas

Any one of these examples can lead to serious injury. When imaging and diagnostic equipment is not sanitized, for example, or is sanitized incorrectly patients who use the imaging equipment after an ill person may contract an illness. Superbugs and antibiotic-resistant strains of illnesses often occur in hospitals and in many cases these outbreaks and illnesses are caused by poor hygiene within hospitals.

Poor hygiene and sanitation can occur for a number of reasons:

• understaffing, especially of janitorial staff
• poor staff training of proper sanitization techniques
• negligence or recklessness when sharing equipment or replacing devices
• distraction during work
• lack of hospital policies for proper sanitization
• lack of awareness about current techniques for proper sanitation

No matter why it happens, getting an injury from poor sanitation is devastating. Superbugs can kill an already ill patient easily, while infections can prolong an injury or cause serious complications. If you have been injured due to medical staff negligence, you do have options. Contact a personal injury attorney in Miami or your community in order to discuss filing a legal claim. Depending on your situation, you may have a wrongful death claim in Miami or your community, a medical negligence claim, or another type of personal injury claim.

The Flaxman Law Group legal team has seen firsthand how devastating medical negligence can be. If you have been injured and are looking for a medical negligence attorney to help you review your case and your situation, contact the Flaxman Law Group today for a free accident consultation to discuss your situation.