Advances in pharmaceuticals contribute to the fact that many New Mexico residents live longer and healthier lives. However, if a mistake is made in prescribing, dispensing or dosing a medication, a patient could suffer serious or fatal health consequences. More than a few medical malpractice claims have been filed because a health care practitioner made a crucial medication error.
Considering the fact that nearly one-third of all Americans take a minimum of five different medications per day, the chance for error is frighteningly high. Hundreds of thousands of patients experience adverse drug events every year. A percentage of them end up being hospitalized because the adverse reaction is so severe. These mistakes put people’s lives in jeopardy.
Being hospitalized does not remove the danger either. Doctors’ orders can be wrong or difficult to read. They can prescribe the wrong medication or the wrong dosage of the right medication. Even if a doctor does everything right, the nurse tasked with carrying out those orders could make a mistake in medication, dosage or dispensing times. Most of these errors are preventable.
When medical professionals fail to meet the appropriate standard of care for a New Mexico patient, it could constitute medical malpractice. Making mistakes with medications that could cause serious or fatal harm is included in that definition. Anyone who believes that a mistake of this type was made, causing the patient to suffer permanent injuries or death, can discuss the matter with an attorney not only to seek damages, but to hold medical professionals who fail to provide the appropriate care to their patients fully accountable.