Preventable deaths have been rising in Connecticut

A groundbreaking report came out in 1999, telling the American public that as many as 98,000 people passed away yearly due to errors in hospitals that were entirely preventable. The Institute of Medicine carried out that survey and did the report. It took people by surprise and rocked the medical world.

However, according to the Journal of Patient Safety, people should be thrilled to go to the hospital and battle with those odds in 1999. Today, they claim that preventable deaths have risen to 440,000 annually. That’s over four times what was reported in that stunning 1999 report, and it happened in just 15 years.

In fact, these errors have taken over as a leading cause of death for Americans. Cancer and heart disease still have the top two spots, as one may expect, but there is medical malpractice in slot number three. That means it outranks things like car accidents and diabetes, which get far more national coverage.

It’s important to note that this doesn’t take into account people who simply couldn’t be cured. If someone suffers serious injuries in a car accident, goes to the hospital and dies from those injuries, the hospital is not to blame. This report, which shows that the entire population of a city like Atlanta is dying yearly in the hospital, looks only at mistakes that were made, which could and should have been prevented, leading to a death that otherwise would have been avoided.

If you have been injured due to medical malpractice or if you’ve lost a loved one in Connecticut, make sure that you know exactly what legal options you may have.

Source: Forbes, “Stunning News On Preventable Deaths In Hospitals” Leah Binder, accessed Mar. 19, 2015