If you were involved in an accident or suffered from an emergency medical condition and were taken to the hospital, you may trust that the physicians and medical experts have your best interests in mind. We typically have no choice but to seek emergency medical treatment, especially if we are unconscious or incapacitated. Unfortunately, emergency surgical procedures and life-saving healthcare often have the highest risks of complications or errors that can make your injuries worse.
If you faced negligent healthcare in the emergency room, contact our Miami attorney for emergency room and hospital mistakes to discuss the potential of filing a medical malpractice case. For help with your case, call Prosper Injury Attorneys today at (305) 694-2676.
Injuries from Negligent Emergency Room Treatment in Florida
The medical treatment you undergo at the emergency room is often used to prevent moderate injuries from getting worse. Alternatively, the care can consist of life-saving interventions to heal injuries that could be fatal if you go without treatment. If you are unconscious or unable to consent when you arrive at the hospital, it is still usually assumed that you consent to emergency lifesaving medical care. However, this does not give the doctors or hospital an excuse to provide inadequate care because of the rush or urgency.
Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals in the emergency department are required to provide medical care that meets certain standards of care. In most cases, the standard of care is not something you can reference in a textbook or learn in a medical school course. Instead, the standard of care is determined by the specific circumstances of the situation at hand. Another doctor can review the care you received and determine, in their expert opinion, whether the care you received fell below the expected standard of care.
If the care you received was inadequate, you could suffer harm. Typically, surgical intervention and medical procedures have some risks associated with them, but serious harm that falls below the standard of care is unacceptable and can lead to medical malpractice lawsuits.
Any additional injuries you suffer because the medical professionals gave you inadequate care could be compensated through one of these medical malpractice lawsuits. Typically, you can include the doctors and the hospital in this lawsuit, suing for any additional medical care, lost wages, pain and suffering, or other harms brought about by the surgical mistakes and negligent healthcare.
Suing for Medical Malpractice after an Accidental Injury
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If you suffered negligent medical care after an accident, you may be able to hold the person responsible for the accident liable for the negligent medical care. While the doctors and the hospital might be responsible for their own errors, you would never have needed emergency medical care in the first place if it were not for the accident.
When you face injuries in a car accident, slip and fall, or other accident, the person who caused that accident is liable for any harm that results from the accident. Medical malpractice during the treatment of your injuries is considered a foreseeable harm related to the accident. This allows you the choice of suing the initial defendant – the person who was responsible for your accident – for the harm from medical negligence in the emergency room. Talk to an attorney about whom to sue and what the best path to full compensation is in your case.
Examples of Emergency Room Negligence
In a medical emergency, there is less time to examine the options to get the patient the care they need. The hospital may have little or no information about the patient, which also makes it more difficult to look up the patient’s medical history to know if they have any allergies or illnesses that could be made worse through certain healthcare decisions.
Florida also gives emergency providers extra legal protection. For emergency care a hospital or doctor is required by law to provide, and for care related to that emergency, they are liable only for reckless disregard, a much higher bar than ordinary negligence (Fla. Stat. 768.13(2)(b)). That protection ends once the patient is stabilized and can be treated as a nonemergency patient, or, if the emergency requires surgery soon after, once the patient is stabilized after the surgery. However, the following examples of negligence still generally fall below the standard of care in emergency medical cases:
- Allowing a patient to suffer from an infection because of unsafe or unclean hospital conditions
- Failing to properly disinfect tools, materials, and personnel before performing medical care
- Cutting too deep or causing damage to the wrong location during surgery
- Accidentally nicking arteries or severing nerves
- Performing medical care that is unnecessary or unrelated to the emergency at hand
Lawsuits for DNR Violations in Miami
A do-not-resuscitate order is narrower than many people think. Florida’s DNRO form (Fla. Stat. 401.45) tells medical providers to withhold cardiopulmonary resuscitation, including chest compressions, defibrillation, intubation, and artificial ventilation, if the patient’s heart or breathing stops. It does not govern ongoing care outside a resuscitation: whether to continue a ventilator, a feeding tube, or other life-prolonging treatment is the patient’s own decision while able to make it, and otherwise a matter for a living will or a health care surrogate under Chapter 765. If a hospital ignores a valid DNRO or a living will, it may be liable for the suffering and end-of-life care the patient endures as a result. Talk to an attorney if doctors disregarded a DNRO or living will for you or a family member.
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If you or a loved one suffered from negligent healthcare in the emergency department at a hospital in South Florida, contact Prosper Shaked, a Miami attorney for emergency room and hospital mistakes. Call Prosper Injury Attorneys at (305) 694-2676 to schedule a free legal consultation on your case today.