Operating Room: Non-Counted Instrument Left In Patient, Court Holds Nurses At Fault
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
September 1999
Quick Summary: The operating room nurses were negligent. It did not matter than the clamp left in the patient was considered an instrument and it was hospital policy for the nurses to count sponges and needles, but not to count instruments.
Operating room nurses also have the responsibility to make sure that instruments are not left behind inside the patient. COURT OF APPEALS OF OREGON, 1999.
The surgeon and the hospital were sued because a small hemostat clamp was left behind the patient’s heart in his pericardium during open heart surgery.
The surgeon admitted in court it is not usual or proper procedure for an instrument to be left inside a patient.
The three operating room nurses were not sued. Instead, the hospital was sued as their employer and was ruled at fault for their negligence.
The Court of Appeals of Oregon ruled the surgeon was at fault. But in healthcare litigation it is not either/or. More than one party can share civil liability.
According to the court, the nurses in the operating room share responsibility with the surgeon for making a general inspection and for ascertaining that no unwanted foreign object is being left inside the patient.
Operating room nurses are directly responsible for the accuracy of their sponge and needle counts. The court ruled they are also responsible for any non-counted item left inside the patient. Fieux v. Hospital, 978 P. 2d 429 (Or. App., 1999).