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The nation’s largest nurses union has asked the D.C. Health Department on Monday to investigate nurse under-staffing at Washington Hospital Center. According to the union, under-staffing is jeopardizing patient care.
The National Nurses United union filed a 19-page report with the D.C. Health Department, which documents 50 separate instances of what it describes as unsafe patient care across all departments in the hospital this year.
As the Washington Post reported, the union filing describes “instances of patients not receiving medication on time, newborn infants not being fed promptly and a patient who was rushed back to the operating room after the patient had stopped breathing and suffered cardiac arrest. The union did not know whether the patient survived.” The full Post article can be read by clicking here.
Under-staffing is a major issue that plagued hospitals across the country. It is important for hospitals to put safety above profits and staff their facilities appropriately. If they don’t, patients will be seriously injured and killed. I represent victims of medical malpractice and their families every day. All too often the harms caused to patients could have been easily avoided if sufficient competent staff was in place to monitor and treat patients.
I hope the union report spurs positive change.
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About the author:
Mr. Zambri is a Board-Certified Civil Trial Attorney and Past-President of the Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. He has been acknowledged by Washingtonian magazine as a “Big Gun” and among the “top 1%” of all of the more than 80,000 lawyers in the Washington metropolitan area. The magazine also acknowledged him as “one of Washington’s best–most honest and effective lawyers” who specializes in medical malpractice matters, product liability claims, and serious automobile accident claims. Mr. Zambri was recently (2011 edition) acknowledged as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” by Best Lawyers and has also been repeatedly named a “Super Lawyer” by Law and Politics magazine (2010)–national publications that honor the top lawyers in the country.
Mr. Zambri is regularly asked to present seminars to lawyers and doctors, as well as both medical and law students concerning medication errors, medical malpractice litigation, and safety improvements.
If you have any questions about your legal rights, please email Mr. Zambri at [email protected] or call him at 202-822-1899.
