Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals work hard to help people who are in need of care. Unfortunately, there are times when preventable medical negligence and misconduct can occur. Medical malpractice and negligence cause thousands of injuries every year.
If you or someone you love has sustained injuries due to medical malpractice, you should seek the assistance of an experienced medical malpractice lawyer in Augusta, GA who can help you get the compensation you deserve.
In hospital settings, medication errors top the list of most common mistakes. In some cases, the wrong medicine is given, and in others, the medicine is right, but the dosage is wrong. Other errors in hospital settings include surgical mistakes, leaving surgical tools inside a patient’s body, performing an operation on the wrong part of the body, or incorrectly administering anesthesia. Some of the most common emergency room errors are:
An Augusta, GA medical malpractice lawyer can help Georgia patients hold negligent hospitals accountable for their injuries.
Medical devices are routinely used to diagnose, prevent, or treat disease. However, when these devices malfunction, are misused or otherwise fail, a patient can be severely injured or killed. If any of the following three defects are involved with a medical device, the manufacturer could be liable for the resulting harm or death of a user. This would constitute a defective medical device lawsuit. Working with a medical malpractice lawyer in Augusta, GA can help ensure that the manufacturers of defective medical devices are held liable for a patient’s injuries.
Failure by a physician to properly diagnose a disease can ultimately lead to the death of a patient. Whether it’s a misdiagnosis or a delayed diagnosis, the results for an individual can range from severe ongoing pain to permanent physical impairment or even loss of life.
Here are some examples of misdiagnosis:
A medical malpractice lawyer in Augusta, GA can help patients determine what time of misdiagnosis the negligent medical professional performed and hold that individual responsible.
An estimated 15 million people in the U.S. suffer injury from medical errors every year. The Food and Drug Administration requires that adverse drug reactions be reported to its agency. About 1.5 million of these Adverse Drug Events (ADE) stemming from medication errors are reported annually. There is also a reported estimate of 40 to 60 wrong-site surgeries per week in the U.S. This includes operations that are wrongly performed, either on the wrong person or on the wrong body part. Some of the most dangerous and most common errors happen when physicians make misdiagnoses. This type of error is among the most costly medical mistakes made. Over $38 billion was paid between the years 1986 and 2010 to cover misdiagnosis claims, per Johns Hopkins Hospital researchers.
Negligence by health care providers causes far more injuries annually than the general population realizes. For example, a study published in September 2013 by the Journal of Patient Safety places the number of people dying every year from preventable injuries caused by hospitals at a figure somewhere between 210,000 and 400,000.
The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) is a database accumulation of medical malpractice payments and reports in the United States. Records within this database showed 99 percent of all doctors will be faced with at least one malpractice lawsuit by the age of 65, per the New England Journal of Medicine.
Damages can be legally awarded to patients injured as a result of medical malpractice. In an effort to make patients “whole” again, compensatory malpractice damages may be provided in the form of financial compensation to cover non-economic and economic losses.
Economic losses, also called “actual damages,” that are suffered by the injured patient can include:
An Augusta, GA medical malpractice lawyer will help injured patients and their families determine what types of damages can be compensable in a lawsuit.
Medical malpractice laws (GA Code § 9-3-70) for Augusta, GA and all other cities in Georgia state that the term “action for medical malpractice” means any claim for damages caused by the death of or injury to any person arising out of:
(1) Health, medical, dental, or surgical service, diagnosis, prescription, treatment, or care rendered by a person authorized by law to perform such service or by any person acting under the supervision and control of the lawfully authorized person; or
(2) Care or service rendered by any public or private hospital, nursing home, clinic, hospital authority, facility, or institution, or by any officer, agent, or employee thereof acting within the scope of his employment.
You will need to be able to prove in a court of law that your injury was a direct result of your doctor’s violation of the standard of care when you file a medical malpractice lawsuit in Augusta, GA. This is difficult to prove and often requires the use of expensive expert witnesses in the medical field who are familiar with medicine.
The Georgia statute 51-1-27, specifies that if someone who practices medicine or performs surgery fails to use “a reasonable degree of care and skill” and injury results, this individual may be sued for malpractice. The “care and skill” is dependent upon the situation. However, it will be compared to the type normally used by competent physicians in the same profession.
Georgia’s Supreme Court has determined that three elements must be established in order for an injured party’s claim to be valid. These are:
In a number of malpractice lawsuits, the second and third of the above elements are in dispute. Often, doctors argue they were amply careful and only did what other physicians would do in a similar circumstance. Additionally, doctors frequently espouse that their error was not the root cause of a patient’s injury. Rather, physicians say the individual could have had a pre-existing condition already or that the injury would have resulted anyway, whether the doctor made a mistake or not.
Patients do not have an unlimited amount of time to bring forth a lawsuit. They must sue within two years after the date of death or injury, according to O.C.G.A. 9-3-71. If this deadline is not met, they will not be able to seek financial compensation.
There is a statute of repose in Georgia that cuts off your ability to sue for the act that caused your injury after 5 years. Even if it were not possible to discover the injury reasonably in five years, you won’t be able to sue.
There is a separate law regarding any foreign object that was left in a person’s body. You will only have one year to file a lawsuit from the discovery date in that situation. If, for example, you had an injury several years ago and you just discovered an object the surgeon left inside of you, you would have a year to sue from the date of discovery.
When it comes to medical malpractice cases, a lawyer must have expertise not only in law but also in medicine. Because of the complexity of these cases, the victim’s legal counsel must have a high degree of skill and be well-versed in both areas. When searching for the right attorney to handle a medical malpractice case, the victim should look for one who:
Even if all of the facts and evidence point toward medical malpractice, a victim needs the right attorney who can make the crucial tie between the injury and the cause. The legal professionals at The Eichholz Law Firm have the expertise and experience to conduct a thorough investigation, develop all evidence into a solid case, and effectively present it to a jury. Our attorneys will acquire expert witnesses to dispel negative innuendos from the negligent party’s side.
Give us a call to discuss your next steps with one of our experienced Augusta, GA medical malpractice lawyers.
