It is a tragic fact that preventable medical errors kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. The highest estimate – 195,000 deaths annually in U.S. hospitals alone – cited in a study by HealthGrades Inc. would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America behind heart disease and cancer. It is the equivalent of three jumbo jets crashing every day in America. It is nearly four times the number of U.S. troops killed in the Vietnam War.

Here are a few other startling statistics:

• Another 90,000 Americans die every year due to preventable hospital-acquired infections, according to federal estimates.

• An additional 60,000 to 100,000 preventable deaths are caused each year by physicians’ failure to prevent blood-clot formation in nursing home and hospital patients, according to public health officials.

• In the six months between the start of mandatory reporting in June 1 and Dec. 31, 2004, hospitals in Pennsylvania reported 70,851 patient safety incidents.

• Surgical teams accidentally leave clamps, sponges and other tools inside 1,500 U.S. patients a year, according to a January 2003 study by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health. In the Philadelphia area, the same thing happens in about 80 cases a year, according to a February 2004 report in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

• More than one-third of practicing physicians and 40 percent of the public say they have experienced a medical error in the care that they or a family member received as patients, according to a December 2002 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health.

• 5.5 percent of doctors nationwide are responsible for more than 57 percent of payouts in medical malpractice lawsuits, according to an April 2005 study by Public Citizen.

The Pennsylvania Medical Society, the Politically Active Physicians Association and other proponents of limiting injured patients’ Constitutional rights can’t have it both ways. They can’t allow an epidemic of medical errors to persist, then try to deprive injured patients of fair and just compensation. If they want lawsuits to go away, instead of taking away the rights of innocent victims, I would respectfully suggest they should do something to eliminate the errors that cause the lawsuits in the first place.