Orlando Medical Negligence Attorneys
Deaths at Florida Hospital Prompt Investigation for Negligence
Three very troubling deaths at a privately run Florida hospital have prompted an investigation by state officials that revealed that many patients were being overmedicated and employees failed to alert officials about suspected abuse after a patient died in a bathtub of scalding water. The South Florida State Hospital in Broward County is operated by The GEO Group Inc., a company based in Boca Raton that is one of the world’s largest private operators of penitentiaries and detention centers.
Florida Called “Epicenter” of Prescription Drug Abuse
A new study has found that overdoses of prescription painkillers now kill more people in the U.S. each year than auto accidents do, and they have become the leader in preventable deaths in this country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fatal overdoses from prescription medication more than tripled to 13,800 from 1999 to 2006 in the U.S. Recent data suggest that overdoses have nearly tripled again since 2006, with at least 37,485 people killed in 2009 from taking powerful painkillers such as OxyContin, Xanax, Vicodin and others. James O. Cunningham and other Orlando personal injury attorneys are especially concerned that our state is now being called the “epicenter” of this abuse. Recently, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has indicted dozens of physicians and operators of clinics for unnecessarily prescribing these potentially lethal drugs.