Am I Getting Compensated For Surgical Errors?

A surgical patient cannot sue a hospital if lacks an extra pair of hands, when wheeling someone that had been hooked-up to 2 different pieces of equipment, from their hospital room to the operating room. Yet there are times when a patient’s rights include the right to sue for the commission of an error in the operating room.

Characteristics of surgical error that qualifies as medical malpractice

• Error had resulted from someone’s inattention or negligence; alternatively, error could have been avoided.
• The members of the surgical team failed to exercise proper care and diligence, during performance of their designated tasks.
• The error’s commission caused the patient to suffer an unneeded amount of harm.

Examples of medical malpractice during an operation

• Surgeons operate on the wrong body part.
• Surgical instrument left inside body; its presence could aid development of an infection.
• Surgical team carries out an unnecessary operation.
• Development of an infection follows surgery. The extent of harm done to the patient could be extensive, especially if the infected area was next to an implanted device. Bacteria grow rapidly on the non-organic surface of such a device.
• Damage to internal organs: A scalpel, scissors or laser might puncture or perforate some organ that was close to the area that had been focused on by the surgical team. The damage to that neighboring organ might go unnoticed.
• Nerve damage might occur during the administration of anesthesia.

The ways that a surgical error might harm a patient

It could cause a permanent impairment, such as when a surgical procedure gets done on the wrong body part. There is an infection could cause pain and suffering. It might be necessary for the patient to undergo several more operations, in order to correct the mistake. If the patient was an adult with a job, that would mean added time off from work. That could cause an employer to look with disfavor on the employee’s repeated absences.

Damage to the nerves or to an internal organ could diminish the patient’s ability to carry out a normal body function. It might eliminate the capabilities that the patient had used, when performing a certain job responsibility.

How to address such harm?

That is best done by hiring a lawyer. An injury lawyer in North Bay could show in court the extent to which a surgeon’s error qualifies as an example of medical malpractice. A lawyer’s statements might show how a mistake could have been avoided, or how it had resulted from performance of an act of negligence.

An injury lawyer could describe the error’s exact nature, and then explain how that same mistake had caused harm to the patient/client. In that way, an injury lawyer could offer strong support for the plaintiff’s charge of medical malpractice.