The adverse event of C.W. accident case
In the case C.W. versus Regional Hospital, C.W. was involved in a road accident; he suffered head injuries, he also complained of pain and numbness in the middle of his shoulders. Considering the symptoms of the patient, the hospital recommended an X-ray that turned negative of any chances of fracture or dislocation. The patient was discharged from the hospital and referred to his family doctor for further medical attention.
The most unfortunate thing in the C.W. versus Regional Hospital case was that the pain and numbness in the middle of the patient’s shoulders continued after the examination; further examination by a physician revealed that C.W. had three fractures and a displacement of C6-C7 vertebrae; the outcome was consistent with the patient’s pains. After the treatment C.W. had some restrictions when moving his neck.
Error that occurred
Although the regional hospital responded to the case fast and acted in good faith, some errors occurred; one of the errors was brought by using a defective machine that produced blurred images that were not sufficient to detect the fracture and displacement of the bones.
Although the hospital had recommended an X-ray, it seems it never put much emphasis on the symptoms that the patient had and cleared the patient to his family doctor without a recommendation on actions to take in the event the symptoms persist.
The condition of the patient
After the accident, C.W. had a head injury that required to be stapled, this was effectively handled by the regional hospital; on the other hand, C.W. had been injured internally causing fracture and displacement of his C6-C7 bone.
Who is to blame?
Looking at the facts of the case, the regional medical care facility is to blame; the facility lacked the technology, expertise, and physical assets to offer high-quality medical services. The fact that their X-ray machine offered blurred images is an indication that there were some deficiencies in the whole X-rays system. Other than the X-ray results, the facility failed to give keen considerations to the symptoms that C.W. had, they tended to ignore and assume everything was in the right shape. As professionals medical practitioners at the regional hospital should not have ignored what the patient was complaining about, if the facility cannot solve the patient’s condition, they should have referred him to a facility with better facilities for specialized attention (Felland, Cunningham, Cohen, and November & Quinn, 2010).
Other than the failure on medical attention provision, the regional facility released C.W. to his family doctor but made an impression that they had checked all possible routes that might be disastrous to the patient; they posed to give the impression that everything was in order (Dewan & Sack, 2008).
Why do we need to openly discuss errors that occur in practice?
In the medical profession, there are times that errors occur; practitioners should be willing to discuss the errors with the right people in good time to facilitate further attention. When errors are discussed, future medical attention will be based on an informed platform. When dealing with referral cases, it is important to have a well-documented treatment history of the patient; in case of any error, it should form part of the referral history and recommendations given by the referrer hospital (Amalberti, Auroy, Berwick & Barach, 2005).
References
Amalberti, R. Auroy, Y., Berwick, D., & Barach, P. (2005). System Barriers to Achieving Ultrasafe Health Care. Annals of Internal Medicine, 142 (9), 756.
Dewan, S., & Sack, K. (2008). A Safety-Net Hospital Falls Into Financial Crisis. The New York Times. Web.
Felland, L., Cunningham,.P, Cohen, G., November, E. ,& Quinn, B. (2010). The Economic Recession: Early Impacts on Health Care Safety Net Providers. Research Brief, 15. Center for Studying Health System Change. Web.