Dauphin Country-based Dr. Andrew Shapiro advised surgery to insert ear tubes and remove tonsils and adenoids on his patient Keonte Graham. Graham was 11 months when the surgery took place.
The patient however required brain surgery following the original surgery which was for sleep apnea. After the operation, Graham was said to suffer from breathing problems and was kept in the recovery room for 5 hours while his blood level oxygen was low.
Dr. Shapiro faced a lawsuit later on, which revealed that he failed to carry out proper physical examination after the operation and neglected to instruct the medical staff for monitoring the level of oxygen in the patient’s blood.
You should keep in mind that even minor mistakes from doctors and other healthcare professionals can have life-altering effects on your kids, and some can even resulted in death. Your child can be the victim of negligence in any healthcare environment.
Types of Malpractice Children Can Suffer From
1. Use of defective medical devices
The FDA recently asked parents to report medical device defects used for children. Despite the strict testing procedures that medical devices have to go through, some defective ones still manage to get through. Medical devices that have resulted in medical claims during the last few years include implants, defibrillators, prosthetic devices and diagnostic testing tools.
The injuries and damage caused to the child’s health as a result of a defective device can be considered for a product liability lawsuit. All states have certain procedures for filing such cases, which is why legal resources are important for parents seeking compensation. Professionals can also help in determining whether the defective use of a device is subject to a product liability lawsuit or a medical malpractice lawsuit.
2. Negligence of the healthcare professional
Negligence is one of the common types of medical malpractices in U.S. and other countries. Some of the negligence can be in the form of failure to monitor the health of the child before recommending the treatment, delays in diagnosing of congenital issues and failure to provide special care to the child during recovery at the medical workplace or hospital.
The claims can be filed for any types of injury due to negligence. Some of the common negligence claims involving children include Cerebral Palsy and Erb’s Palsy. In case serious injures where the child requires assistance over the long term, the defendant can be taken to court and asked to compensate for ongoing needs of the child.
3. Lack of practitioner experience
It can also happen that a doctor with inadequate experience performs treatment on the child, which can result in undesirable outcomes because they may fail to follow the standard procedures.
In this case, the lawsuit should be filed on the basis that the practitioner breached the applicable standard protocols which resulted in injury to the child. The practitioner will be asked to provide proper documentation and evidence of his applicable method in the past, and there’s a high chance those with lack of skills and poor experience will fail to do so.
It’s wise to stay proactive about complications that can arise when your child undergoes medical treatment. Doing so will allow you to take instant action in case your child falls victim to medical malpractice.
The above entry is a guest blog entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments are welcome.