QUESTION
I had a baby in May of this year in NY. My baby has a problem with her kidney and bladder that was seen in ultra sounds as early as 20 weeks
Asked on Aug 07th, 2017 on Medical Malpractice - New York
More details to this question:
while i was still pregnant. I was told that there was a spot on bladder but it will probably go away. Nothing was ever said again. After birth my baby got a very high fever and was in intensive care, still nothing said. I mentioned that i was unofficially told they saw a spot on her bladder when i was pregnant. Come to find out there were notes in all the ultra sound results i had (which was several) that there was damage to her kidney and she had other problems because of it. Yet no one ever told me anything. Three surgeries and one big one to go we are still trying to correct the problem. My specialist said i should have been seeing him during my pregnancy and they baby should have been watched all along. I'm not sure what could have been done if we were seeing him but what if i hadn't mentioned it to hospital? What if we hadn't taken her to hospital for fever? Is someone responsible for never following through with the ultra sound and informing me when this problem occured?
1 ANSWER
Civil Rights Law Attorney serving Rockville Centre, NY
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Lori Nevias, Attorney at Law
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It is impossible to tell if you have a medical malpractice case on behalf of your baby based on the above, but the fact that your specialist said you should have been seeing him during your pregnancy is a big red flag that you might. The only way to tell is to have your pre-natal medical records and your baby's medical records thoroughly reviewed by an experienced medical malpractice attorney. A malpractice case requires not only that a doctor/doctors made mistakes that violated the standard of care, but also proof to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that your baby would not have had the medical problems she now has if the doctors had sent you to a specialist.
Also very important to keep in mind is the statute of limitations to start a medical malpractice action, which is 2 1/2 years from the time the mistake was made. It is unclear in this situation whether that means the first time your doctor observed the spot on the baby's bladder or later, but to be on the safe side it should be calculated from the time the spot was first observed by your doctors. That can be determined by reviewing the medical records.
Answered on Aug 08th, 2017 at 8:03 PM