William Hussel is a name many in Ohio may not forget in a long time. He was an Ohio doctor charged for deaths of 25 near-death patients after ordering the excessive and potentially fatal use of opioids on the patients. The case exposed a massive gap in medical oversight and medical malpractice that touched on more than 30 employees.
Hussel, an employee of Mount Carmel from 2015 to 2018, was suspended from work on November 21 and later fired two weeks later. The motives as to why he may have ordered the nurses to give the patients such large doses of fentanyl remain unclear. Many of the diseased patients in question were older and seriously ill.
In one of the cases, he may have ordered 2000 micrograms of fentanyl to an 82-year-old woman who reported to the hospital for stomach pains five minutes before she died. In all the other cases, the patients may have received doses of more than 500 micrograms upon Hussel’s orders. It is not clear how Hussel could bypass the standard procedures of ordering medication and still get a nurse to administer the dangerous amounts of the drug to the patients.
According to Electronic Medicines Compendium (EMC), doctors should administer opioids ranging between 50 micrograms to 200 micrograms depending on the circumstance and size of the patient. Apart from medical malpractice, hospital negligence is a critical problem that has shown to lead to the deaths of many people. Hospitals should employ a well-streamlined system that makes it easy to track down medical malpractices and nip it in the bud. Anyone that lost a loved one from an overdose of opioids through medical malpractice may reach out to a personal injury attorney for a consultation. They may help you determine if the case is worth pursuing.