The Associated Press has recently reported on changes for health care workers in New York State. In particular, New York is looking into further prosecution of and regulation regarding health care workers that sleep on the job. The change was spurred when a disabled man, who was unable to speak, stopped breathing during the night while the nurse on duty was sleeping. The man eventually died as a result and the nurse was criminally prosecuted.
Sleeping on the job is apparently quite common for health care workers, especially on overnight shifts. It has led, however, to nearly 500 cases of negligence on the part of New York health care workers when they failed to properly care for a patient because they were sleeping. Despite evidence that this problem has led to harm, there is little prosecution and few consequences when injury occurs.
While criminal prosecution is an option, there is also an avenue for relief in a medical malpractice case. If you or a loved one suffered injury when a healthcare worker negligently slept on the job, or acted negligently in another way, you may have a legal case to gain compensation for your injury. Call Paul M. da Costa, Esq. at Sarno da Costa D’Aniello Maceri LLC at 973-274-5200 today for help with your case.
