New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

In what turned out to be a shameful comedy of errors, a misdiagnosis resulted in catastrophic injuries for a 63-year old man.
The 63-year old man presented to a local hospital three years ago needing emergency medical help. After being misdiagnosed at the hospital by the doctors who missed the fact that he’d had a series of strokes and coping with delayed treatment for his cancer, he became legally blind and unable to walk without help. Ultimately, he had to be admitted to a nursing home, as his wife was no longer able to physically care for him, outlined the NY Medical Malpractice Lawyer.
When the couple arrived at the hospital, the husband was given a CT. The doctors felt the results revealed older lesion and sent him home with a diagnosis of vertigo and medicine to take. A follow up MRI indicated he’d had recent strokes. Two weeks after his ER visit, he couldn’t see or talk any longer. Misdiagnosis is something that doctors and hospitals in Nassau and Suffolk Counties must be wary of.
A brain biopsy showed he had intravascular lymphoma (cancer) and he was sent to another hospital for treatment. Unfortunately, the sending hospital did not include his biopsy slides or other medical information when he was transferred and thus treatment was delayed, explained the Lawyer. All in all, this man got the short end of the medical care stick and suffered enormously as a result of the poor care he received.
The former trucker and factory worker’s whole life has been turned upside down as a result of medical malpractice, said the New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer. When this case went to trial, the jury found for the plaintiff in the amount of $2 million. While the award will help care for her husband, it will never make him whole again and he will never be the same person; another loss of a different kind for the family.

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If medical malpractice immunity is instituted in return for treating Medicaid patients, the system would become a shambles, indicated a New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer.
Perhaps this is an idea that may find favor with the general public; a way to treat those who don’t have much in the way of proper medical care. On the surface, this sounds very humanitarian. Deep in the heart of this idea though lies a very real threat. This is also true of things like misdiagnosis which can be a suable offense.
By providing doctors with immunity to lawsuits for treating Medicaid patients, what is to say that they will get the same standard of care someone with health insurance will get? What is to say that the care given to Medicaid patients may not on occasion be substandard and a mere nod to the rules of providing care for immunity from being sued, asked the New York City Medical Malpractice Lawyer
Sovereign immunity is a slap in the face to medical malpractice patients, whether they have health insurance or not or whether they are on Medicare or Medicaid. Should a State give immunity to doctors, the State then becomes the doctor who was negligent.
This means if a patient sues, taxpayers would then be footing the bill for med mal claims, while the doctor gets off scott free. Where is the justice in that? Where is the compassion for victims of a medical professional’s negligence? The very idea is an affront to victims, indicated the Lawyer.
Medical professionals in Long island and Manhattan need to be held accountable for their errors and if they are not held up to scrutiny, then the old saying of “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” would certainly hold true.

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A stay in the hospital can be an emotional and traumatic experience for most anyone. This is especially true when you or someone you love must be continually monitored due to an illness or injury. A New York Medical Malpractice Attorney also claims that their very lives often depend on the monitoring equipment being fully functional, and on hospital staff paying close attention to any indications that something may be happening that will require their attention to be focused on the patient.
All have learned that the best-case scenario of when an alarm sounds from a medical monitoring device, it may by ignored by medical personnel. There are also cases that have been reported of these life-saving alarms may not be sounded at all. Some recent reports in the investigative media have specified more than a few problems with this life-saving system--Problems that have cost some people their lives, and has forever altered others.
Sources have told a NY Medical Malpractice Attorney that when these alarms are ignored by hospital staff, it may be referred to as “alarm fatigue.” Medical personnel are confronted by as many as 1,000 alarms a day, in some cases. That is an astounding number, and while there are many of the alarms that indicate that a patient is in distress, there are also many more of these alarms that are false. Medical personnel are people too, and people tend to become conditioned or desensitized to external stimuli when that stimulus is persistent in its duration. Just to note that some medical equipment emits constant beeps in addition to alarms, which further adds to this desensitization. Hospitals in Westchester County and Staten Island would do well to study this case and make sure they don't suffer the same fate.
Human error is not the only contributing factors to alarm fatigue, however. Medical equipment manufacturers must also bear responsibility and should constantly strive to improve their products in order to reduce, or even better to eliminate, these false alarms.
When medical personnel allow alarm fatigue to set in, thereby allowing them to ignore these kinds of alarms, they are negligent in the performance of their duties and should be held accountable. These persons are charged with the safety and well-being of those who are at least temporarily unable to care for themselves, and are held to a higher standard of ethical and legal conduct.

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After a New York hospital closed, hundreds of people were left out in the cold, says one New York Malpractice Lawyer The hospital, which closed due to having about $1 billion of debt, filed for bankruptcy, which has so far protected it from any lawsuits for malpractice, some of which could give the victim millions in dollars.

According to a New York Malpractice Lawyer, the hospital did have insurance for malpractice, although it may have been underfunded, with only $150 to $250 million left for the families of those who suffered while staying in the hospital. That money, unfortunately, would first have to go to creditors, who would legally have first dibs on the remaining funds, meaning that the roughly 260 people who are currently suing the hospital would end up with nothing, even though some have suffered serious injury or had loved ones die.

One such case involves the family of a woman who died in the hospital due to a misdiagnosis and a faulty defibrillator. Her family sued the hospital and won over $5 million, and not a single dollar has been paid. The family is struggling to get by, and the woman's daughter needs her tuition paid for, which the $5 million would have certainly done. Doctors and Hospitals in The Bronx and Brooklyn have to take note and be on guard.

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This case should never have happened and the awful thing is that the woman the suffered the medical malpractice is unable to sue in the state she lives in. This would never happen in New York, indicated a NYC Medical Malpractice Lawyer
The woman knew that there was a major problem, as she had pains in her legs. She had a history of blood clots and had a filter installed in one of the main veins of her heart. She went to the hospital ER outlined her problem. She was discharged with a diagnosis of bilateral leg pain.
Three days later, her legs were bright red and she called an ambulance and was taken to a different hospital. Evidently, her filter was blocked with blood clots and because she had waited, there was dead tissue in her legs and she was starting to go into kidney failure. Several weeks later when she came out of a coma she discovered both her legs had been amputated to save her.
The woman sought help from an attorney, but in the state where she lives, even though she has a good case, it can’t be pursued due to caps on medical malpractice lawsuits. Her home state passed laws in 2003 that made it even more difficult to sue in “any” health care situation, but more particularly in an ER setting. The med mal cap was set at $250,000 for non-economic damages per health care provider, with a maximum award of $750,000.
In this woman’s case, the $750,000 would barely make a dent in her medical bills and other expenses she is facing for the rest of her life, said the New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer. While her case against the ER doctor is solid, the language in the new law protects ER doctors from misdiagnosis, unless they acted with wanton and willful negligence; a hard thing to prove. The doctor would have to “know” they were putting a patient at risk and still proceed with their diagnosis. There is no room here for simple negligence and the new threshold is virtually impossible to meet. In New York City and Long Island this defense would probably not hold up.

If you have been in a situation like this and have been misdiagnosed by an ER doctor, make your first call to a New York Medical Malpractice Attorney. Do not wait until you feel better, as the Statute of Limitations must be met in cases such as this. Only a New York Medical Malpractice Attorney will be able to obtain equitable compensation for you.

Continue reading " Leg Pain Results in Double Amputation " »

During a facelift at a local plastic surgeon's office an Irish woman fell to the ground, and upon arrival at the nearby hospital, was declared dead.

The woman had traveled from Limerick, Ireland, to have her facelift done. After the surgery, her doctors left the office, leaving the woman in the care of a nurse, who apparently did not know what to do when the woman collapsed. The nurse called 911 and the woman was declared dead at the hospital.

According to a New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer, fingers have been pointed in multiple directions since the surgery. The plastic surgeon did settle with the family for an undisclosed sum, but the family is also suing the nurse as well as the anesthesiologist who were also in the operating room. Both the nurse and anesthesiologist have pointed to the plastic surgeon as the one who was at fault.

The NY Medical Malpractice Lawyer has stated that the anesthesiologist was in a hurry to leave the office and did not complete his work appropriately, which was also a cause as to the woman's death. She died on St. Patrick's Day. in the Bronx and in Brooklyn, hospitals are always trying to prevent these mistakes.

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A woman in Virginia claims a 2009 colonoscopy caused her a number of medical problems. The 29-year-old woman is suing both the doctor and his employer for medical malpractice. New York Medical Malpractice Lawyers have learned she wants a jury trial and $5 million in damages.
The doctor, a gastroenterologist, performed the colonoscopy on June 23, 2009, investigating his patient’s complaints of persistent diarrhea, according to the complaint.
“[The doctor] knew before the colonoscopy that [the plaintiff] had great difficulty tolerating the ‘prep’ to clean out her colon and that she had severe left lower quadrant abdominal pain, abdominal cramping, nausea and vomiting,” NY Medical Malpractice Lawyers read in the complaint. “He prescribed Demoral for her pain and decided to proceed with the colonoscopy without first evaluating what was the cause of her severe pain.”
The suit went on to say that in attempting to bypass obstructions in the patient’s colon, he might have perforated her colon. Her condition worsened considerably after that.
The doctor had the patient admitted to the intensive care unit at Winchester Medical Center that afternoon.
Another colonoscopy, with the patient under sedation, was performed two days later. According to the suit, the colon was perforated there, as well.
“Shortly after the second procedure, the patient had more episodes of vomiting brown material, and she likely aspirated fecal content into her lungs,” the complaint stated.
The patient claims the doctor used “an ill-advised initial colonoscopy without investigating her pain.” According to the suit, a CT scan would have revealed the patient required surgery in the first place.
According to the patient, the doctor did not ask for her consent before any of the procedures, nor did he describe risks or alternatives. He also caused internal injuries that led to sepsis and failed to protect her from the lingering medical effects. Hospitals and doctors in Nassau and Suffolk Counties must be on guard for this type of negligence.

As a result, the suit claims the woman has a perforated colon, acute respiratory difficulties, sepsis syndrome, kidney failure, liver injury, a bleeding disorder, and even a failure in multiple organs that lead to bleeding in the brain. Part of her skull had to be removed to relieve the pressure.

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