If you or a loved one has been injured as a direct result of a medical surgery or treatment, filing a clinical negligence claim may be warranted. Prior to filing a claim, it is essential to have a brief understanding of the definition of clinical negligence, the various types, and a general overview of the process. Having a basic understanding of clinical negligence will enable you to make informed decisions about how to proceed. What is Clinical Negligence? Clinical negligence, also known as medical negligence is a classification for situations in which a doctor or healthcare provider acted irresponsibly, resulting in unnecessary harm or injury. Put simply an unreasonable action carried out by a doctor caused significant harm to a patient. …show more content…
Cerebral palsy is a brain injury that significantly impacts a patient’s fine and gross motor skills and use of limbs. Cerebral palsy may also influence a patient’s intellectual capacity as well. There are a wide range of outcomes in patients with cerebral palsy but upon diagnosis, some parents recognise that the cause may have been due to negligence. If so, a reputable attorney can provide the necessary assistance needed to file a claim. Different types of medical negligence claims have different rules. For most medical negligence cases, claims need to be filed no later than three years after the date of the incident. Once three years has passed, the case cannot be filed. On the other hand, for medical negligence cases involving children, the three year restriction does not apply. The only restriction with cases involving children is that they must be filed by the time youth are 18 years of age. There are many other types of clinical negligence cases related to medical treatments including misdiagnosis, gynecological, and meningitis. Cases related to surgeries are also …show more content…
Typically, a free consultation is offered as an opportunity to receive guidance and advice on how to proceed. During the consultation, funding may be discussed to determine how the claim will be covered. Depending on the type of claim, there are different options available. For example, for certain brain injuries, clients can be represented under a Legal Aid Certificate. There are also conditional fee agreements in which claimants do not have to pay for legal expenses if the case is not won. Insurance may also take care of the expense if the policy was active during the time of the
Medical malpractice has been a controversial issue in the healthcare setting for centuries. Apparently, there are laws to protect patients’ from medical mistakes and errors that are the result of negligence. After researching various laws and medical liability cases based on allegations of negligence, this paper will discuss and provide details on the medical malpractice case of Dorrence Kenneth versus Charleston Community Memorial Hospital. The case analysis will briefly explain information from the beginning to end, including: laws that were violated, codes in the healthcare industry that were breached by the physician and Charlesto...
In the State of Hawaii, there exists a Medical Liability/Malpractice Joint and Several Liabilities Statute. This allows people to pursue a civil lawsuit against a physician(s) or other health care providers. It allows people to sue for damages in the event of an injury or death as a result of negligent behavior. In order to recover damages, a person must establish the following:
Medical malpractice lawsuits are an extremely serious topic and have affected numerous patients, doctors, and hospitals across the country. Medical malpractice is defined as “improper, unskilled or negligent treatment of a patient by a physician, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care professional” (Medical malpractice, n.d.). If a doctor acts negligent and causes harm to a patient, malpractice lawsuits arise. Negligence is the concept of the liability concerning claims of medical malpractice, making this type of litigation part of tort law. Tort law provides that one person may litigate negligence to recover damages for personal injury. Negligence laws are designed to deter careless behavior and also to compensate victims for any negligence.
Before there can be a nursing malpractice case, the plaintiff must prove certain legal elements. These elements include: 1) duty of care: the defendant nurse had a duty of care toward the plaintiff; 2) breached of duty: that the defendant breached that duty, usually by acting negligently or carelessly; 3) causation: that the injury would not have happened if the
Medical malpractice cases are difficult for the families who have lost their loved one or have suffered from severe injuries. No one truly wins in complicated court hearings that consist of a team of litigation attorneys for both the defendant and plaintiff(s). During the trial, evidence supporting malpractice allegations have to be presented so that the court can make a decision if the physician was negligent resulting in malpractice, or if the injury was unavoidable due to the circumstances. In these types of tort cases, the physician is usually a defendant on trial trying to prove that he or she is innocent of the medical error, delay of treatment or procedure that caused the injury. The perfect example of being at fault for medical malpractice as a result of delaying a procedure is the case of Waverly family versus John Hopkins Health System Corporation. The victims were not compensated enough for the loss of their child’s normal life. Pozgar (2012) explained….
Nault, the parents of a man in a permanent vegetative state sued the attorneys representing him in his initial medical malpractice case for legal malpractice, but they failed to show proximate cause. Mainor v. Nault, 101 P.3d 308, 310 (Nev. 2004). Mainor v. Nault establishes that there needs to be a clear proximate cause between the attorney’s actions and the clients who suffered damages. Id. The case of Slaughter v. Coffing indicates that there needs to be an argument proving that malpractice was the proximate cause of damages. Slaughter v. Coffing, No.68911, 2017 WL 462250, at *3 (Nev. App. Jan. 24, 2017).
Constructive negligence is a more extreme negligence than gross negligence. This negligence is unusual but was committed without intend to deceive or harm. Negligence of this magnitude occurs when an inadequate audit was done but an opinion was issued anyway. For instance, if HealthSouth employees kept a factious account that was above the auditor’s materiality threshold but did not test this account...
Quality health care is the provision of effective and efficient health care that is free of errors or misjudgments. Quality health care puts the onus on medical practitioners to ensure that patients get the best comprehensive care possible in order to eliminate problematic situations. Over the years, reports have surfaced about discrepancies in the health care systems. Some of these errors have cost patients their well-being or more seriously, their lives. Cases involving medical malpractice, through negligence, are among the issues that compromise health care. Patients suffer adverse effects of omission or commission on the part of medical personnel and the results are sometimes very critical. Because of medical negligence,
“These include a failure or delay in diagnosing a patient’s condition, misreading X-rays, prescribing the wrong pharmaceuticals, failing to warn a patient of the risks or side effects of a procedure, performing services without the patient’s informed consent, and making a mistake during surgery or childbirth” (Medical Malpractice Law, n.d.). These are legal requirements that are needed to accuse healthcare provider of medical malpractice.
Acts of negligence could result in many different forms of harm or injury. Under the common law, acts of negligence could result in physical injury, psychological harm or economic loss. These outcomes equate to a given level of liability by the defendant to the claimant. In order to hold the defendant liable for negligence, however, the claimant has to meet the court’s threshold as far as justifying duty of care is concerned. Failure to evidence duty of care subsequently results in the collapse of the case.
In order to establish medical negligence in a case, the following elements must be present:
This would be the finial thing that would have to be proven in a negligence case. And that is was there really an actual injury. If you cannot prove that there was an actual injury you will not have a case. It also means that was their already an existing litigation, and was the filing deadline meet to the claim. (Seaquist, 2012).
Winfield defined negligence as “the breach of the legal duty to take care which results in damage, on desired by the defendant to the plaintiff.”1 Therefore, it is necessary to prove an existing duty of care, breach of that duty and the breach causing damage must not be too remote in order to find successful action in negligence. Negligence began to develop in the early 19th century when liability of carel...
When something goes wrong, law will step in, in a case no one is directly at fault, otherwise negligible, one may be able to seek appropriate remedies. Negligence, A failure to act with the level of care that would be expected to do a task. There are three elements of negligence. (Lawhandbook.sa.gov.au, 2017)
When the doctor or hospital made an error or some type of omission during a medical procedure, consultation, diagnosis, surgery or other types of healthcare, they commit a Medical malpractice. Although it can be stated that the doctors are negligent in performing their duty, it is not a mere negligence. Medical professionals are usually held to higher standards of performance according to the local customary practices and training. Medical professionals can be held liable of the medical malpractice, if they provide medical services below the accepted standards, which, in its turn, leads to severe injuries or even death of the patient. In addition, the wronged patient has to prove that the result of the medical care or surgical intervention was not foreseeable or necessary.