“Even though things were bad,” said Calora, “it doesn’t give people license to practice beneath the standard of care.”
A Washington lawyer observes that the pandemic created a free for all in health care where providers were operating willy-nilly in the face of a poorly understood disease.
In my own experience, it was the pandemic rules that kept people out of hospitals and away from family bedsides that made it more difficult. Family members at the bedside are the last line of defense in patient safety. Without concerned family keeping track of care, an essential guard rail was removed that promoted carelessness. To make matters worse, it was difficult if not impossible for family members to keep track remotely by phone. This made any turn of events for the worse an opaque disaster – a puzzle that could not be solved without obtaining the medical records.
Link to the story out of Washington state is here:
Pandemic Major Factor in Legal Cases of Medical Carelessness
