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When you suffer serious injuries or require emergency healthcare, you may have no choice as to which hospital you are taken to or what care they perform when you arrive, especially if you are unconscious. Some complications are expected, especially if you are in critical condition or the doctors cannot immediately determine what is wrong. However, this does not excuse negligent healthcare or mistakes that might lead to additional injuries, illness, or negative outcomes.
If you suffered from surgical errors, mistakes, or negligent healthcare at the hospital, contact our Houston attorney for emergency room and hospital mistakes today. The Queenan Law Firm’s medical malpractice and hospital injury lawyers may be able to fight your case and seek to get you compensation for your injuries. To schedule your free legal consultation, call our law offices today at (817) 476-1797.
Common Examples of Hospital and Emergency Room Negligence
When you arrive at the emergency department of any hospital, the doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers are expected to meet certain standards for your healthcare. If they fail to meet these standards by committing errors or failing to give you the care you deserve, you may be entitled to sue them for medical malpractice. These instances of negligence can come in many forms, including the following common issues.
Doctors and nurses in the emergency department are trained in assessing cases and the resources available (e.g., the number of open rooms and staff on hand to treat patients). During this triage process, you may be asked to wait if your emergency is not as urgent as other patients’ issues. Patients suffering from a stroke, cardiac arrest, serious injuries, or complications with certain diseases and disorders are often given priority over cases with less obvious or severe health conditions. Sometimes, the emergency room staff makes mistakes and forces patients that need urgent care to wait. This frequently happens with patients who are good at managing their own pain, patients who do not know they are pregnant, patients who are suffering from mental disorders, and patients who cannot clearly communicate their issue.
Once you are seen by a doctor or a nurse, they may need to assess you quickly to determine what is wrong and how to treat you. This does allow some room for trial and error, but some mistakes are far outside the definition of acceptable complications. If the doctor misdiagnoses your condition or fails to diagnose an issue they should have caught, the doctor may be responsible for giving you unnecessary treatments and failing to treat you properly.
Many other mistakes arise from poor communication and record keeping. If you are being transferred to the emergency room from another department or another hospital, they should transfer your chart and inform the new unit about what medication you are taking, what symptoms you have shown so far, and any medical records they have on hand. Many injuries occur when the medical staff double doses a patient they did not know was already given the first dose or gives them medication they should have known the patient was allergic to. Moreover, time may be wasted redoing the work if the new unit is not given a proper report, and your health may suffer from that lost time.
If you are taken into surgery, your doctor or other medical staff inside the operating room might commit avoidable surgical errors during the procedure. This could involve nicked nerves or arteries, unnecessary procedures, or mistaken procedures. In some cases, these injuries could even be as severe as performing surgery on the wrong part of the body or the wrong patient.
Suing for Medical Malpractice in the Emergency Room
If you went to the ER and suffered from bad healthcare decisions, negligent care, or mistakes, you could be seriously injured. The hospital and the medical professionals involved in your care can often be sued for medical malpractice and ordered to pay you financial compensation for the injuries you suffered.
In most malpractice cases, the damages you claim can involve compensation for the additional medical care you needed, any lost chance at recovery the negligence caused you, any effects the injuries had on your wages or earning capacity, as well as the pain and suffering of the event. In cases where a loved one passed away from malpractice, you may be able to sue for the loss itself, their lost wages, the funeral and burial expenses, lost companionship, and other harms related to their death.
In cases where malpractice occurs after another accident, you may actually be able to sue the person who caused the accident for the subsequent malpractice. Because hospital care is a predictable result of any injury, the person who caused your accident may be liable for the cost of your medical care. Similarly, since medical negligence is a predictable possibility when you receive medical care, they may also be on the hook for the damages related to your malpractice. This means that you may be able to sue the driver who hit you for malpractice after a car accident or another responsible party after another type of injury.
Talk to a lawyer about whom to sue for your malpractice case and what options will help you maximize the compensation you receive.
Call Our Miami Emergency Room and Hospital Malpractice Attorney
If you or a loved one suffered negligent healthcare at a hospital or in the ER after a serious health complication or an accident, call The Law Offices of Prosper Shaked today. Our Miami emergency room and hospital mistakes lawyer may be able to file a lawsuit on your behalf to seek damages for the harm you suffered. For your free legal consultation, call (305) 690-0244 today.