Hospitals are meant to be houses of healing, and recovery. And for many, they are. But for a few people, clinics and hospitals have become a source of nightmares. These places have become a cesspool of preventable infections, injuries, and deaths.
And these are largely caused by physicians, and other healthcare personnel in the hospitals. Truth is the number of people who die from hospital-related negligence and errors shouldn’t be so high.
When doctors and other healthcare professionals do not do their jobs correctly, this can start a process that results in a negative experience for their patients. Negligence is very high on this list.
Patients who have been negatively impacted by medical negligence and errors can actually file a medical malpractice claim against the physician and/or other healthcare personnel responsible for their situation.
But to do that, certain requirements must be met. When they are met, you’ll then have solid grounds to file a malpractice claim against the medical personnel and get the compensation that’s due to you. Let’s examine each of these very quickly.
Doctor-Patient Relationship
First, you have to establish that you had/have a relationship with the doctor or medical personnel in question. There has to be proof that your condition was worsened or negatively impacted by their inability to do their job correctly.
So, if you were admitted into a hospital with many doctors, you can’t just pick any doctor to sue. It’ll have to be the one that treated you. There has to be a recorded agreement that you hired them and they agreed to be hired.
You cannot sue a doctor just because you heard them consulting with someone else about your case or one that you overheard providing medical advice when you were at an event.
The doctor and medical personnel have to clearly be working with and for you to help you get better. If they are not treating or did not treat you or your loved ones directly, they are not liable for any claims.
Medical Negligence
Here’s the truth: patients who aren’t happy with their treatment or have personal animosity towards a doctor cannot really sue them. The grounds for a medical malpractice suit has to be medical negligence and errors. For instance, you cannot sue a doctor who treated because they’re of a different race.
You cannot sue them because they were indifferent and probably aloof while they were treating you. But, if they were negligent and their negligence ended up causing harm, injury or death to you or a loved one, then you have a claim. Medical malpractice suits are generally tied to medical negligence and errors. This is the basis for all malpractice claims.
The doctor must be shown to have been negligent while treating you or your loved one, and that you or a loved one were harmed directly because of their negligence. There has to be proof that, if you were under the care of an equally competent doctor, that you or a loved one wouldn’t have been subjected to that harm, infection or fatality.
While the doctor’s care may not be the best, they should at least be skillful and careful enough to take care of you and help you recover from your illness.
This is why when a malpractice suit is filed by a Medical Malpractice Lawyer Manhattan NYC, the review board doesn’t look at whether they’re the best. They look for skillfulness and carefulness during the course of your medical care.
This is why there’s usually an expert witness who is there to show how the defendant doctor deviated from the acceptable standard of care.
Negligence and Errors Resulted in Injury, Harm or Fatality
One of the key requirements considered during these cases is if the doctor’s negligence, errors or inactions directly resulted in the patient’s injury, harm or death. The emphasis is on their negligence and direct causation.
This is important because most patients often come into the hospital injured or sick. So, you have to clearly distinguish between what brought them to the hospital in the first place, and the harm they sustained because a doctor didn’t do their jobs correctly.
For instance, if a patient goes to a hospital with a knife wound, and the doctor mistakenly prescribes a blood-thinning medication instead of a blood-clotting drug to help stop the blood flow, the patient can only sue the doctor for the prescription that resulted in increased blood loss. They cannot sue the doctor for the knife injury, because the doctor didn’t cause that.
