Medical maltreatment is an issue that that is ongoing around the world. The United States data shows the different kinds of maltreatment of patients in medical facilities. The data also shows the levels of maltreatment across all the states in 2021.
The data has shown the different types of maltreatment of patients in the US, this first graph shows the amount of medical maltreatment per state in 2021. One of the highest categories of maltreatment was medical neglect, this category is difficult to define as the term neglect could be perceived differently by care giver and patients, neglect could range from the caregiver not fulfilling their duties to the patient on a basic level to something much more concerning.
The other categories show more specifically the kinds of maltreatment that was occurring in in medical facilities across the US, one of them being the physical abuse of the patients.
This graph shows how much physical abuse occurred in each state. The most populated state of California reported far less cases of physical abuse compared to some of the less populated states. California reported over 2000 cases of physical abuse compared to Tennessee’s 4500 reports.
Both California and Tennessee are more populated than South Carolina, however South Carolina reported nearly 7500 cases of physical abuse, the second highest state in the category of physical abuse in 2021. Ohio being the highest as shown on the graph above.
One of the other concerning types of maltreatment was sexual abuse.
The states record of Sexual abuse vary fairly significantly from the Physical abuse data. Some of the larger states by population unsurprisingly reported higher levels of sexual abuse compared to the smaller sates by population. Texas one of the biggest states by population reported the highest rate of sexual abuse cases, with over 5500 reported. This compares quite drastically to New York that is one of the most populated states and only records 345 incidents of sexual abuse maltreatment.
This may beg the question what is the discrepancy in care if the population and amount of abuse are so different?
(Featured image:“Non-Descript Hospital Hallway” by ScottD_Arch is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)
