If you are injured in an accident or have a severe health emergency, you count on the medical professionals in the emergency department to provide the treatment you need. Unfortunately, sometimes, doctors and other healthcare providers make mistakes and cause further harm to their patients.
If you think that this happened to you or a loved one, you may be able to sue the provider and, in some cases, the hospital for medical malpractice for their emergency room negligence. However, not every mistake made in an emergency room rises to the level of negligence and malpractice.
What Is Emergency Room Negligence?
To win a claim for emergency room negligence, you and your attorney will need to prove four things:
- The emergency department provider owed you a duty of care. This condition is generally satisfied if the provider treats you in the ER.
- The provider did not meet the standard of care. An emergency room doctor is held to the standard of acting the way a reasonably careful doctor in the same area under similar circumstances would have acted. In other words, the standard is that of a reasonably careful doctor working in an emergency department.
This can be tricky. The standard for emergency department doctors may differ from that for doctors working in offices. An ER is typically chaotic, and doctors often need to make quick decisions with limited information. For this reason, it may be harder to prove that an ER doctor’s mistake rose to the level of negligence. That’s why you must seek an experienced medical malpractice attorney who can advise you if you have a good case and have the knowledge and resources to meet the challenges of pursuing an ER negligence claim. - You or your loved one were harmed. Examples of harm from emergency room negligence include your condition getting worse, needing additional medical treatment, experiencing pain and suffering, and death.
- The harm was caused by the provider’s failure to meet the standard of care. This means that the harm resulted from the negligence and not something else.
To prove your case, your lawyer may need to consult with medical experts who can testify about the standard of care for ER providers and other aspects of your case.
Examples of Emergency Room Negligence
Common types of ER negligence include failing to make a diagnosis, making the wrong diagnosis, delaying a diagnosis, discharging a patient before it is safe to do so, not ordering appropriate testing, misinterpreting the results of a test, and making medication errors.
Can You Sue a Hospital for ER Negligence?
You may be able to sue the hospital if the provider who harmed you was an employee of the hospital. Many ER physicians are independent contractors, not hospital employees. However, nurses and technicians are often employees. There are sometimes other circumstances that allow you to sue the hospital. You can discuss that with your attorney.
What You Should Do If You Think You Were Harmed by ER Department Medical Negligence
Medical negligence is a complex area of the law, and medical negligence in an emergency room is even more so. Selecting the right lawyer to advise you on your options is crucial. The medical malpractice attorneys at Garmey Law have the experience and resources needed to advocate for your rights, including a national network of medical experts. Garmey Law attorneys are proud of their track record, including a $2 million settlement they obtained for a client severely harmed by improper emergency room treatment. For a free consultation, call us at (207) 481-4683 or contact us through our website.