Long Island Hospital Neglect Lawyer
Being in the hospital is already an anxiety-inducing experience. The fear of hospital neglect can make a high-stress situation even worse. Call a lawyer immediately if you believe you or someone you know was injured because of hospital neglect.
Identifying hospital neglect can be difficult. While doctors and nurses are held to high standards, they are not expected to be perfect, and accidents and mistakes sometimes occur. Hospital neglect, however, is inexcusable. Common examples include failing to administer medication, administering the wrong medication, and failing to conduct aftercare. Hospital neglect is often intertwined with medical malpractice, and you can sue the nurses, doctors, and hospital responsible. Damages include financial losses (e.g., costs of additional treatment) and non-economic, like pain and suffering. It is best to speak with a lawyer right away, as you might have a limited time to take legal action, and evidence might disappear.
To schedule a free review of your case, reach out to our hospital neglect lawyers by calling The Carrion Law Firm at (631) 910-7493.
How to Spot Hospital Neglect on Long Island
One of the most complicated parts of a hospital neglect case is spotting neglect when it happens or shortly thereafter. When people arrive in hospitals, they are often injured and in bad shape, and it is not unusual for conditions to worsen while in the hospital. As such, new injuries from neglect might go unnoticed or be chalked up to preexisting injuries.
One way to spot hospital neglect is to keep track of how often nurses or doctors visit you during your hospital stay. Nurses and doctors should check on your condition regularly, often multiple times daily. If you rarely see the people treating you, you should speak to an attorney.
You should also keep an eye on medication. One very common example of hospital neglect comes from mismanagement of patient medication. You might be given too much, too little, or the wrong medication, making your condition worse or leading to new medical complications. Our hospital neglect lawyers can compare your account of when you were given medication with hospital records to uncover discrepancies.
Hospital neglect does not always happen while you are in the hospital. It sometimes comes up after a patient is released. If you are given inaccurate or inadequate aftercare instructions, and your condition worsens, you might have a claim for neglect. Alternatively, if your doctor never scheduled you for follow-up visits when any other doctor under the same conditions would have done so, you might have a case for neglect.
Suing for Hospital Neglect on Long Island
Another frustrating aspect of a hospital neglect case is determining who exactly is responsible. Medical care is often handled by teams of medical professionals and overseen by hospital administrators. If someone is the victim of hospital neglect, it might be hard to figure out who among the many should be held accountable.
Suing Doctors and Nurses
You can begin your case by examining the people you directly interacted with and their behavior. Doctors and nurses are usually directly treating patients, and their negligence might have serious consequences for the people in their charge. An attorney can help you determine if your doctor or a nurse neglected you to the extent of causing harm. If so, they can be sued for damages.
It is important to note that figuring out whether your doctor or a nurse should be sued is complicated because not all medical mistakes are considered acts of neglect. Doctors and nurses might make mistakes, but they believe they are acting in the patient’s best medical interests at the time. Additionally, not all treatment works, even when it is the best course of action. The fact that your treatment failed does not definitively prove neglect.
Suing the Hospital
In many cases, if not most of them, victims of hospital neglect may sue the hospital itself in addition to individual medical professionals. Even if the hospital did not know about a doctor or nurse’s negligent care, it might still be held liable. For example, if the doctor treating you neglected to update your charts regarding medication dosages, and so nurses provided dangerous quantities of medicine, the hospital they work for might be liable.
Hospitals might also be liable because of policies that allow or even encourage negligent care. For example, suppose the hospital where you were treated only requires nurses to check on patients once every 3 hours instead of the usual once per hour. The hospital might be liable if your condition worsens because nobody checked on you for a long time.
Potential Damages in Lawsuits for Hospital Neglect on Long Island
Damages reflect the things you lost, the money you spent, and the pain you endured because of hospital neglect. Damages are unique to your situation and might not be the same as someone else in a similar situation.
Economic damages revolve around money and expenses directly related to your injuries. In cases of hospital neglect, where medical care is already extremely expensive, your economic damage might be quite significant. Not only can you claim the value of your medical bills from when you were neglected in the hospital, but you can also claim subsequent medical costs if you need additional treatment to remedy injuries from the neglect.
If the neglect you faced while in the hospital worsened your condition, you might have taken significant time off work to recover. As such, you and your attorney should calculate the value of the income you missed out on and add it to your economic damages.
Other damages are unrelated to money but may still be financially compensated. Non-economic damages often include physical and mental pain and suffering. Because of the neglect, you might have been in a lot of physical pain. If nurses did not administer your pain medicine as they should have, you might have been in agony. You can also claim emotional trauma. Many people already have a lot of anxiety regarding medical care, and being the victim of hospital neglect might leave you devastated or traumatized. You deserve financial compensation for these and other painful experiences.
Contact Our Long Island Hospital Neglect Lawyers Immediately
To set up a review of your claims free of charge, speak to our hospital neglect attorneys by calling The Carrion Law Firm at (631) 910-7493.