Hospital deaths weekends Hospital deaths weekends. People admitted to the hospital on the weekend are 10 percent more likely to die than those who checked in during the week, according to a new analysis of nearly 30 million people. Even if 10 percent doesn't sound like much of a difference, when applied to the entire U.S. population it equals an additional tens of thousands of people each year, study author Dr. Rocco Ricciardi of Tufts University Medical School told Reuters Health. "In other words, an extra 20 to 25 thousand people die each year in the United States because of admission on a weekend," he said. This is not the first study to uncover a "weekend effect," in which patients are likely to fare worse during the weekends. Previous research has shown a "weekend effect" for patients admitted to the hospital for heart attack, a blood clot in a lung, a ruptured abdominal artery and strokes of all kinds. Still, the data are not always consistent: e...