PA Surgical Malpractice Lawyers
Reuse of Single Use Medical and Surgical Devices
Many medical instruments and surgical instruments are marked "single use only." However, many hospitals, physicians, and clinics reprocess single use only medical instruments using merely detergent scrubs and minimal sterilization techniques and reuse them. This potentially exposes a patient to dangerous and often fatal blood borne or crossover infections such as AIDS, hepatitis C or other potentially fatal diseases.
The experienced Philadelphia medical malpractice lawyers of Reiff & Bily understand that safety should always be a top priority for a physician and medical organization and that profitability or the financial bottom line must always take a back seat to patient safety. The introduction of single use surgical instruments for dental and minor surgical procedures derives from the enforcement of policies to ensure patient safety and infection control. Due to the fact that certain contaminations were noted to survive normal sterilization processes, many people carry infections without exhibiting any outward symptoms which are normally associated with horrific diseases. These diseases increase the theoretical risk of cross contamination as non-infected patients are operated on with reusable surgical instruments that have been previously used on infected patients. By definition, a "single use" surgical instrument is confirmed clinical waste and should be disposed of in accordance with clinical waste laws.
Recently our Pennsylvania personal injury law firm was retained to represent the interests of a healthy individual who had a prostate biopsy where a single use surgical instrument was reused and the patient later discovered in blood screening that he had contracted a potentially deadly blood disease and thereafter lost his employment.
Single unit medical devices are generally so inexpensive that one must be outraged and wonder why a physician would place a patient at such a grave risk of harm even if the potential for crossover infection is minimal, as one surgeon recently told me. Certainly our experienced Pennsylvania surgical medical malpractice lawyers believe that such practice is unacceptable and that patient safety should always be the top priority of surgeons and physician.
If you or a loved one has been the victim of medical or surgical malpractice and would like to speak to an experienced Pennsylvania hospital malpractice lawyer, please feel free to contact the lawyers of the Reiff & Bily legal team. For a free, no obligation consultation, contact us toll free at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.
