Medical professionals are one of our greatest lines of defense during times of widespread illness. However, that wasn’t the case for one Louisiana man. He recently got hospitalized with a contagious virus after receiving a flu misdiagnosis.
Doctors reportedly didn’t display accurate test results
According to a recent report, the man’s wife said he became so sick that he couldn’t get out of bed. When his condition didn’t improve, he went to his local urgent care, where clinicians administered a flu test. They also prescribed him Tamiflu and codeine; still, his symptoms didn’t go away.
After he called urgent care doctors, they told him Tamiflu sometimes isn’t effective for flu patients.
Eventually, the man’s illness became so severe that he had to go to the emergency room. However, when urgent care sent over his test results, the test they gave him for the flu came back negative. Then, the hospital ran a test for a widespread virus that came back positive. Now, the man is receiving treatment in an intensive care unit for the illness and double pneumonia.
Misdiagnosis can cause problems
While cases like these are often rare and much less severe, it can show how negligence on behalf of medical professionals can put even healthy Americans at serious risk. At the same time, there’s a lot you can do right now to protect yourself and your family members from widespread illness. That way, you can reduce your chances of having to deal with a medical misdiagnosis.