Leaving Surgical Instruments Inside The Patient Is Negligence

If your surgeon leaves an instrument, sponge or another tool behind in your body after surgery, you could experience serious consequences, including infection or even death. While there are usually safeguards in place to prevent surgical mishaps from happening, human error continues to persist, even among surgeons and other high-level medical professionals. And while hospitals may accept that a certain number of these events happen every year, you shouldn’t have to accept it when it happens to you.

When an error of this sort happens to you or a loved one, you deserve compensation to help pay the medical bills, lost wages, and other expenses associated with the subsequent intervention and care. Call Shelly Law Offices, LLC, at 267-454-6594 local or 866-214-3323 toll-free for your free initial consultation.

How Do Medical Instruments Get Left Behind?

While larger instruments like scalpels do get left behind sometimes, generally it’s smaller, less obtrusive surgical instruments that medical professionals neglect to remove after surgery. Some of the most common items left behind include:

• Sponges and towels
• Hemostats (clamps) and scissors
• Needles and scalpel blades
• Remnants of broken instruments
• Parts of staples

Surgery can be messy and hectic, involving many people and dozens of medical objects. The hospital or surgery center should have protocols in place to prevent these errors. For instance, every piece of equipment should be counted before the procedure starts and accounted for before closing the surgical incision. Retained objects can cause dangerous internal bleeding or lead to life-threatening infections. Often, the missing instrument is found only upon X-ray once the patient has already become sick or experienced mysterious pain.

Carrying Someone Else’s Mistake

In addition to the medical complications of the object itself, emotional consequences like anxiety and depression are common after an incident of this sort. You should not have to live with that pain, and you don’t have to go through this alone. You should not bear any costs of surgical intervention to remove the object or your losses from recovering from a second operation. Our firm can help. We have a proven track record in medical malpractice lawsuits against surgeons and hospitals throughout Pennsylvania.

Explore Your Legal Remedies

Call our Doylestown law firm today at 267-454-6594 local or 866-214-3323 toll-free, or write to us online to schedule your free initial consultation.