When you go to a hospital and have to be admitted for overnight stays, it often is a sign that something is significantly wrong with you medically. That is especially true if you have a long term or intensive care unit (ICU) stay.
Being in a bed all day comes with other health risks. Hospitals know this and part of their protocol and treatment of you should be to look out for those problems. One of the biggest ones is getting a bed sore.
A bed sore, which is also known as an ulcer or pressure sore, is a wound that develops when pressure is applied to a certain skin area over a long period of time. Naturally because you are on your back most of the time when bed ridden, bed sores often develop on your back, buttocks and legs.
Some bed sores are rather mild and can be treated with creams. Stage 3 and stage 4 bed sores are much more serious. Very large wounds can occur, resulting in dead tissue. At times surgery is the only solution. This is called a wound debridement.
We have handled a lot of these cases throughout Illinois. They are very disturbing claims. In the worst case scenarios you can practically see bone and the wounds can be the size of a fist or bigger. That is known as a “never event” by Medicaid as in that should never happen.
Bed sores can start in as little as a few hours and get worse over time. In the worst case scenario they can result in sepsis and ultimately death.
There are a lot of reasons these injuries happen, most of which are due to neglect. Some of the reasons include:
- Not re-positioning a patient.
- Failure to give proper nutrition.
- Low staffing levels.
- Not checking on the patient often enough.
- Failure to do skin assessments.
The sad reality is that if a bed sore is minor, the hospital and staff will likely get away with it. That is because the value of the injury would likely exceed what it would cost to bring a lawsuit. On the other hand, if the bed sore requires significant medical treatment and/or affects the health and recovery of the patient, a lawsuit would likely be successful.
The value of these cases varies from case to case. It is dependent on how negligent the hospital was, how bad the injury is and what other risk factors the patient has. Some bed sore cases are resolved for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The most extreme cases can be worth millions of dollars.
Every attorney we recommend to handle these cases works on a contingency basis. That means that there is no fee unless they are successful. By Illinois law, those fees are capped at 1/3 of what they recover for you. Every attorney we recommend is experienced not just with medical malpractice cases, but also in dealing with bed sores and understanding the medicine behind it. That does not guarantee a result, but gives you the best chance of success.
If someone you know has a bed sore, the best thing to do is alert the medical staff so it gets treated and document the injury with photos. Those pictures can have a real impact on a lawsuit and also are helpful in making sure they get the best medical care possible.
If you would like a free case review, we help people all over Illinois. Contact us at 312-346-5320 any time to speak with an attorney.
