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By Emily Roberts
Medical negligence, or medical malpractice as it is sometimes called, does not relate to just doctors. Although these cases are often the most common, involving issues such as surgical errors, misdiagnosis, and can even cover specific areas like birth injury law for those affected during childbirth, anyone in the medical and healthcare professions can make a mistake and cause innocent patients to suffer injuries or illnesses that should not have happened.
We all put our trust in these people who are usually highly trained and, for the most, treat us exactly as they should. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. It should go without saying that if you have suffered a problem whilst undergoing medical care in any setting, you should make sure that you get compensation for this. However, not everyone feels like they should, which is why speaking to medical malpractice attorneys is an important step in the healing journey. No matter how much you are hurt there is help for you out there, so before you tackle this issue alone it might be best to Hire the best med mal attorneys in Cleveland! (or wherever you live).
Dentists
None of us are too keen to visit the dentist, and some of us positively hate it. What you do not expect is to be mistreated, but it can happen very easily. The dentist could extract the wrong tooth, insert crowns or fillings poorly, miss a gum disease that needed treating, or cause nerve damage during a procedure. This is not an exhaustive list of the mistakes they could make; there are many more. For instance, what if they slipped with the drill while preparing for a filling? You could end up with a very nasty cut to your cheek that could leave a permanent scar.
Making a medical negligence claim against a dentist is never straightforward, but you will increase your chances of success by using the best medical negligence solicitors available. This is why so many victims of medical negligence turn to The Medical Negligence Experts (who you can read up about on their website: https://www.the-medical-negligence-experts.co.uk/), as their reputation for quality work and successful claims precedes them.
Chemists
So you have visited the doctor, got a prescription, and wandered off to the chemists to get the medication you have been prescribed. What if the chemist mixes your medication with someone else’s? They could give you the wrong dosage or tell you to take it the wrong amount of time. Computer errors can lead to the wrong medication being dispensed, and they should not substitute a prescribed brand without checking with the doctor that it is OK to do so.
Medical negligence lawyers sometimes have to deal with cases where the chemist has dispensed medication that is for the wrong age group; perhaps something meant to help the elderly with pain is given to a child in error.
Having the wrong medicine can make your illness worse, create a new illness, or, in the worst-case scenario, be fatal. Chemists have procedures in place to try and prevent these mistakes from happening, but if your chemist has got it wrong and you have suffered because of their error, you should be making a compensation claim.
Physiotherapists
Although most people relate their treatment to back pains or sporting injuries, physiotherapists are highly trained to assist people of all ages with many different problems. The various types of treatment they provide are meant to help with muscle and tendon problems, particularly when mobility is affected.
If they treat the wrong area because they are negligent in the proper procedures for a correct diagnosis, you could end up in more pain than before you started with them and could take longer to recover. Medical negligence solicitors will help you build a case against the physiotherapist so that you can claim the compensation you are entitled to. For example, you could learn about spinal injury claims due to medical negligence and see how this type of case has been dealt with at the time.
Care Homes
As good as most care homes are, none of us like the idea of sending a loved one into one or, indeed, becoming a resident in one ourselves. When you are faced with this unhappy choice, you need to know that you can trust the home to provide a standard of care that is acceptable and that your loved one will not be neglected or abused.
Most people in these facilities are there because they need day-to-day care, but they are not bad enough for hospital treatment. You and they have every right to expect good care, and if this proves to be substandard or they are abused by a member of staff, compensation may be payable. The residents should never get bedsores, and if at the worst they do, they should be identified quickly to be treated to prevent infections. A lack of mealtime help can lead to malnutrition or dehydration, and nursing care should be good enough to prevent this.
Sometimes, lousy care is due to a lack of staff training, and the care home should ensure that everyone working with the residents knows precisely what they should be doing.
Medical negligence claims are treated as a very serious matter when an elderly person, or anyone with mental health issues, is badly treated in a care home. Your compensation claim can help to highlight the deficiencies in care and stop the same problems from happening to someone else. Where care homes of any type are concerned, making a personal injury claim is about more than the compensation that may be due.
All of the above are described as medical malpractice. Don’t suffer in silence.