QUESTION
Do I have a chance of winning a medical malpractice suit if my mother was misdiagnosed, an infection was untreated and she died 1 week later?
Asked on Aug 28th, 2012 on Medical Malpractice - Arkansas
More details to this question:
My mother had severe swelling of her feet and abdomen, she went into the hospital and a Dr. told her the problems were from poorly managed diabetes. She also had a spot on her liver he was going to biopsy and drain the fluid from her abdomen. This could not be done because her platelet count was low. He released her to go home, she weighed 225 on release. She was home for 2 days, very weak, fell a couple of times etc.. we carried her back to the ER and upon admission she weighed 240, platelet count still very low and we found out at that time she had been released with an elevated WBC-which means infection somewhere and the Dr. had NOT treated her at all for infection. We saw a different Dr. at this time who told us she had a severe infection in her blood and was septic--the infection was causing organs to shutdown, he also diagnosed her with end-stage cirrhosis-which the first Dr. misdiagnosed as diabetes, he gave her a 50% chance of surviving the infection and she died a week later.
1 ANSWER
Catastrophic Injury Attorney serving Roseland, NJ
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John J. Ratkowitz
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You may have a medical malpractice/wrongful death case. The big question will be whether earlier intervention would have resulted in a different helped him. If an expert determines that your mother was septic before she was released from the hospital, even if the first group of physicians treating her in the hospital were negligent the case will fail because of proximate cause. Beyond this, if your mother had end-stage cirrhosis, she had a poor prognosis for that reason alone. Under the circumstances, there will be a question about whether or not a medical malpractice case is financially viable.
You should contact a local medical malpractice attorney (one in your state). They take these cases on a contingency basis which means you only have to pay if you succeed. Additionally, initial consultations are usually free. You can use the "Find a Lawyer" service through this website to research medical malpractice attorneys. Then, visit each attorney's website and look for a firm that has a record of successful verdicts.
Below are some articles you may find helpful. They are written for a New Jersey audience (where I practice) but the ideas discussed in these articles usually apply in most other jurisdictions as well.
Click here for an article that discusses the three main questions I ask when deciding whether to investigate a potential medical malpractice case.
Click here for an article that explains what you can expect when filing a medical malpractice case.
Click here for more information about me. Click here for more information about my firm.
Please note that by attempting to answer your question, I am not acting as your attorney. I will do nothing further to protect or preserve your interests in the absence of any additional discussion with you about this matter. John Ratkowitz, Esq. Starr, Gern, Davison & Rubin, P.C. 105 Eisenhower Parkway Roseland, NJ 07068 Office: (973) 830-8441 Cell: (732) 616-6278 Fax: (973) 226-0031 Email: jratkowitz@starrgern.com Skype: john_ratkowitz Web: www.starrgern.com.
Answered on Aug 29th, 2012 at 10:22 AM