The hospital has a duty to provide a sanitary environment to avoid sources and transmission of infections including a duty to eradicate pests such as spiders. Pullins v. Fentress County General Hospital and All-American Exterminating Co., 594 S.W.2d 663 (Tenn. 1979).
Hospitals owe a general duty to prevent patients from injuring themselves following surgical procedures. Clearly, a duty is owed to an intubated and restrained patient to maintain a clear and unobstructed breathing passage through an endotracheal tube. The particular harm need not have been foreseeable if another harm of like general character was reasonably foreseeable. Moon v. St. Thomas Hosp., 983 S.W.2d 225 (Tenn. 1998).
The extent and character of the care that a hospital owes its patients depends on the circumstances of each particular case. Keeton v. Maury County Hosp., 713 S.W.2d 314 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1986).
Duty of hospital is to exercise that degree of care, skill, and diligence used by hospitals generally in community and required by express or implied contract. Perkins v. Park View Hospital, Inc., 456 S.W.2d 276 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1970). See also Thompson v. Methodist Hospital, 367 S.W.2d 134 (Tenn. 1962).
