“Never events” are egregious medical mistakes. They are incidents that should never happen under any circumstances, and they can cause significant harm to a patient.
Not every negative outcome is the result of a mistake. Some surgeries come with inherent risks, for example, and patients should be warned that there may be a risk they don’t survive the procedure.
A never event, however, occurs when a doctor makes a critical error. One example is wrong-site surgery, such as performing an amputation or another surgical procedure on the wrong side of the body or the wrong organ. This is not an inherent risk and should never occur. So why do these mistakes still happen?
Doctors make mistakes
Some never events occur because there is a communication error between the surgeon and the rest of the surgical team. Another example could be mixing up patient records between two patients with similar names. In some cases, a doctor may simply become confused, such as when they mistakenly believe they are supposed to operate on a patient’s left leg when the procedure was meant for the right leg.
Because never events are caused by medical mistakes, they are examples of potential medical malpractice. The patient should never have been harmed, but the doctor failed to uphold the proper standard of care. This negligence can cause serious harm to the patient, even if there was no intent to do so.
Patients who have suffered harm, or whose family members have, need to know how to seek appropriate financial compensation. Getting experienced legal guidance as soon as possible is the best first step to determining whether there’s a medical malpractice case and, if so, in seeking justice and compensation.