Should Medical Errors Result in Jail Time?
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On March 25, Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and negligent abuse of an impaired adult for a 2019 medication error that resulted in the death of a patient. We covered this story as it first unfolded three years ago. In fact, the most recent update on our blog, published in March 2019, reported that state health officials had considered the circumstances surrounding the error and declined to take any action.
Outrage from multiple nursing and health care organizations.
Subsequently, however, the Tennessee board of nursing revoked Vaught’s license and the decision was taken to charge her after all. In the past weeks, Vaught’s conviction has sent shock waves through the health care professional community, and many organizations have spoken against the verdict:
From the statement by the American Nurses Association:
“Health care delivery is highly complex. It is inevitable that mistakes will happen, and systems will fail. … The non-intentional acts of Individual nurses like RaDonda Vaught should not be criminalized to ensure patient safety.”
From the statement of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses:
“Decades of safety research, including the Institute of Medicine’s pioneering report To Err Is Human, has demonstrated […]
