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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – When Paula Schulte, 64, suffered an unexpected bout of seizures in August 2012, doctors said she would need only a short hospital stay until the drugs kicked in to remedy things. Instead, her treatment triggered a cascade of medical mistakes that led to her death. After that, her family couldn’t get answers — or accountability.
Schulte’s case illuminates how the health care system not only fails to protect patients but often compounds the harm by hiding the truth when patients or family members try to find out what went wrong, ProPublica’s Marshall Allen and Olga Pierce write. Again and again, patients say they are ignored or dismissed by providers who seem more interested in avoiding legal liability than in acknowledging what went wrong.<script type=”text/javascript” src=”https://pixel.propublica.org/pixel.js” async=”true”></script>
A recent study estimated that preventable harm in hospitals contributes to the deaths of between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year — making it the nation’s third leading cause of death — yet only 10 states require hospitals to tell patients about certain types of medical harm. None requires divulging how the harm happened, who was responsible or what steps hospitals are taking to make sure the harm doesn’t happen again.
Read the full story here: https://www.propublica.org/
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