People place their trust in healthcare professionals and it is important that people have confidence in the healthcare system. While usually, people will receive a high level of care, hospital negligence can occur and the consequences of this can be very high. This can also happen to anyone and there have been a number of celebrities that have encountered medical negligence over the years. Read on for a few of the more notable cases involving celebrities.

Julie Andrews

Academy Award winner Julie Andrews famously suffered from medical negligence when throat surgery left her unable to continue her singing career and with a life-threatening condition. Andrews received damages for emotional and physical pain from the ordeal but her voice remains impacted to this day. This is one of the biggest examples of how hospitals negligence can occur to anyone no matter how much money or status you have. 

Ed McMahon

American entertainer Ed McMahon is another high-profile case with McMahon being left with severe pain in his back and neck and back surgery at Cedars Sinai Medical Centre in Beverley Hills. It was determined that this pain was caused by an improver surgical procedure.

John Ritter

Beloved US actor John Ritter passed away in 2003 and his wife brought a medical malpractice claim stating that the cause of death was due to the failure of medical professionals that did not pick up an enlarged aorta on a CT scan 2 years before he died – Ritter died from an aortic dissection, which is a tear in the biggest blood vessel. 

Dennis Quaid

US actor Dennis Quaid experienced great joy with the arrival of twins in 2007, but this turned to panic days later when it was revealed that hospital staff had given the newborns a dosage of a blood thinner that was 1,000 times the common dosage for infants. This turned their blood to the consistency of water and resulted in internal bleeding and severe pain. Fortunately, the pain subsided and they were OK but Quaid decided to take legal action and this led him to become a patient-safety advocate.

These are a few of the most high-profile medical negligence claims involving celebrities over the years, but there are others too. You expect the best when you seek medical care but as this post shows, even celebrities can experience medical negligence, and the consequences of this can be severe and life-changing.