Many mistakes made by medical professionals are referred to as “never events.” The name signifies that these are such significant mistakes or errors that they should never happen. It is not just a poor outcome for the patient, but something entirely unexpected that should not have occurred under any circumstances.
That said, never events include issues like wrong-site surgery, where a doctor operates on the wrong patient, the wrong side of the body, or performs the wrong operation. We know that these things still happen, despite being called “never events,” so why do they keep occurring?
Negligence and errors
In the majority of cases, these never events happen because of negligence on the part of medical professionals or clear errors and mistakes that they have made.
For example, a surgeon may operate on the wrong patient simply because there is a mix-up with the medical records and they are given the wrong file or assigned to the wrong patient at the time of surgery. The surgeon may not even be aware of the mistake until after the fact.
There are many potential reasons for these mistakes. Distraction from a cellphone could lead a surgeon to make a critical error, for example. Some mistakes are made when doctors are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. In other cases, the issue could be physician fatigue or burnout, leading to negligent mistakes that would not have occurred otherwise.
Seeking financial compensation
No one deserves to experience medical malpractice, but it happens often. Those who have suffered harm from never events must know how to seek financial compensation for medical bills, lost wages and many other costs.
