When you put your life in the hands of healthcare practitioners and services, you expect that they will do right by you, and help you recover from what ails you – or at the very least, they can remove the pain. However, this doesn’t always happen, and you may be left worse off than before. That’s where legal representatives can step in for you, and help you claim compensation for medical malpractice.
What is medical malpractice?
Medical malpractice, to put it in simpler terms, is when healthcare services and professionals commit a preventable mistake that can affect your health in a negative manner. Sad to say, the possibility of making mistakes can happen as early as the diagnosis itself. Here are some medical malpractice issues that can happen to you.
Diagnosis – It’s possible that your doctor can give a wrong diagnosis, and this can mean that at the very least, treatment for your condition will be delayed.
Delayed treatment – Even if you have the right diagnosis, it does not mean that you are home free. If the hospital staff makes a mistake, then your treatment can be delayed, and that may allow your medical condition to worsen, instead of get better. The same situation applies, to if they give you improper treatment.
Informed consent – If you have to have a life-threatening operation, or a medical procedure that does have a chance of leaving a lasting kind of injury, then you should have documentation, and you should have heard all other options. If they operate on you without asking for permission, or not fully disclosing all the details of the procedure, then it is a malpractice suit in the making.
Surgical and emergency room – When something goes wrong during an operation or in the emergency room, there is a chance that it may have been because something went wrong on the side of the doctors and nurses. If the error has long-reaching effects for you, then it’s time to think about having a claim.
Pharmaceutical errors – Were you given the wrong medicines due to interpretation errors, or did the pharmacist made an actual mistake? You may have a case if this happens, since this is tantamount to a delayed or improper treatment.
Do take note that you should also consider cases where hospital negligence and wrongful death will apply.
Why sue?
Think about it. Not only do you have to pay your own medical bills, but you may end up having to pay them twice, to fix the mess their actions made. This compensation should also help you family while you are unable to work, and the stress of the situation should be figured into the compensation amount.
Once you’ve decided that you will file a claim, do make sure that the legal representatives you get know the local laws. For example, if your medical malpractice situation happened in Atlanta, then you should hire lawyers from the Ausband Firm (http://ausbandlawfirm.com/), so you can be sure that your legal representatives will be experienced and skilled in the local laws and guidelines.
