It’s never a good thing when a patient feels that he or she hasn’t received the type of care he or she expected while in the hospital. In fact, hospital staff members are held to high standards of care, and they should provide adequate, appropriate care to every person who needs treatment.
If you’re considering filing a complaint or lawsuit over medical negligence, it’s worth discussing what constitutes negligence and if you have a case. For someone to have been negligent, you need to show that the person failed to act or acted in a way that led to your injury. Negligence occurs when someone doesn’t perform an action or does perform an action that isn’t up to an acceptable standard of care. For example, if a doctor misses a diagnosis that all other doctors in the field would have recognized, you can claim the doctor was negligent and did not perform his or her duties up to standard.
Here’s another example of negligence. In a normal surgical setting, the team counts and recounts each item as it is used, at the beginning and end of the surgery and at other points to make sure nothing is left behind inside the patient. If someone miscounts and leaves a sponge, clamp or other item inside a patient, then that medical error is negligence; there are multiple people who should be able to recognize that there was a missing tool and have been able to identify it if all checks were performed adequately.
Our website has more information on what you can do if you feel you’ve been a victim of medical negligence. It’s important that you have your voice heard.