When you decide to go to the emergency room, you’re most likely experiencing intense pain and you need immediate help. Whether you suspect you’ve broken a bone or you’re severely ill and need medical attention, you expect the doctors, nurses, and other staff members in the emergency room to provide you with quality care for whatever ailments you have. Sometimes, though, you don’t get the care you need or you are not seen in a timely manner and it makes your condition worse.
If you’ve suffered an injury from an accident and didn’t get the help you needed in the emergency room, then you could be eligible to file a medical malpractice claim. A medical malpractice lawyer from Buckingham Barrera Vega Law Firm can help you navigate your claim and hold the hospital or doctor responsible for their negligent actions. Let’s look at what medical negligence is, and how it happens in the emergency room.
What Is Medical Negligence?
When you’re filing a med mal claim, your case will most likely hinge on proving medical negligence. When a practitioner commits a negligent act or omission in care and injures or kills their patient, that is considered medical negligence. When a doctor or other practitioner is negligent, it breaks the contract of the standard of care that says they are to provide reasonable and diligent care to their patients. The resulting injury is what makes a valid med mal claim.
In order to prove medical negligence in a medical malpractice case, you must establish these four elements:
- There was a duty of care owed to the patient by the medical practitioner.
- There was a breach in the duty of care.
- That breach directly caused an injury to the patient.
- The injury caused damages.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common ways that medical negligence occurs in the emergency room.
How Medical Negligence Occurs in the Emergency Room
Emergency rooms exist to help people when they need immediate care. Many doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel are constantly trying to help their patients, but sometimes, they do the opposite. The problem is that when an emergency room is understaffed, overworked, or packed full of patients, errors can easily occur. Here are some of the errors that are considered medical negligence that commonly happen in emergency rooms:
- Misdiagnosis
- Taking too long to see the patient
- Anesthesia errors
- Medication errors
- Surgical errors
- Incompetent doctor on staff
- Misinterpreting test results
- Contaminated blood transfusions
All of these errors in an emergency room could lead to serious injuries or even death. If you’ve experienced any of these forms of medical negligence, you could be eligible to file a medical malpractice case, and you should seek legal help. It’s important you take legal action in a timely manner, though, because you need to do so within the statute of limitations.
In New Mexico, you have three years from the time you were injured to file a medical malpractice claim. Since these cases can be complex, you’ll want the help of a medical malpractice lawyer on your side. At Buckingham Barrera Vega Law Firm, we know how devastating an error in the emergency room can be on the rest of your life. You were expecting help when you went to the hospital, not more problems.
We will fully investigate your claim so that we can get down to the bottom of the medical professional’s mistake and prove that their breach in the duty of care directly caused your injury. Reach out to us today so that our office can begin fighting for you. The sooner we start on your claim, the sooner you can focus on healing.
