Understanding Medical Malpractice Claims in New York City When you or a loved one suffers an injury due to medical negligence, the legal path to
Medical malpractice in the form of delayed diagnosis or misdiagnosis can lead to devastating consequences for patients. In New York, where some of the nation’s top hospitals operate, the standards for care are high. Yet, when those standards are not met, and a diagnosis is delayed or incorrect, the resulting delay in necessary surgeries can cause irreversible damage, severe complications, or even death. Affected patients and their families should get strong legal representation from experienced New York medical malpractice lawyers to recover compensation for their complications resulting from diagnostic or surgical negligence.
Lili Hutchison, a long-time worker at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, claimed that she had been discriminated against and treated poorly at her workplace after she blew the whistle on life-threatening botched up reports by the hospital’s pathology lab. Hutchison alleged that the lab told the wrong patients that they had HIV even though they didn’t – and told them they didn’t have Hepatitis C when they did.
Brooklyn resident Amanda Velasquez, now 27 and a married mother of two, went blind after doctors at Woodhull Medical Center misdiagnosed her glaucoma. She filed a medical malpractice lawsuit at Brooklyn Supreme Court. The jury awarded her $15 million for all that she had suffered.
A woman from Brooklyn, NYC, was left blind following a misdiagnosis of her glaucoma condition, after which she sued the Woodhull Medical Centre for failure to diagnose her disease. The jury awarded her $15,000,000 as compensation for medical malpractice in 2018.
According to estimates, 1,735,350 new cancer cases were diagnosed in 2018 in the US, and 609,640 people succumbed to the disease. Cancer has an average five-year survival rate of nearly 60 percent, but that differs significantly depending on the form of cancer. In general, the chances of survival are higher if the cancer is diagnosed and treated early.
Unreasonable delays in cancer diagnosis are grounds for a medical malpractice claim. But malpractice cases are complex, and there are various roadblocks that you need to identify and overcome to be able to create a solid case for damages.
In October 2011, Amanda Velasquez, a pregnant 20-year-old, walked to Woodhull Medical Centre to see her obstetrician. She was experiencing blurred vision and worried that she was losing her eyesight. Her obstetrician assured her that she had nothing to worry about, and she went home.
Unfortunately, Amanda’s symptoms of cloudy vision and pressure around her eyes didn’t go away, and she visited the hospital six more times with the same complaint, but her obstetrician chose to fixate on her pregnancy rather than check her eyes and told her that there was no problem at each visit.
Failure to diagnose is a kind of diagnostic error that is caused by your doctor being negligent in treating you. If your doctor doesn’t take the necessary steps to determine what illness you have, then you are at risk of sustaining an injury or disability; in fact, some people have even lost their lives due to a doctor’s failure to diagnose. Ultimately, failure to diagnose leads to you receiving delayed or incorrect treatment, or no treatment at all.
In 2007, Ed McMahon, a TV show host, suffered a fall at a Los Angeles home which resulted in a fractured neck. He went to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center the following morning for assessment. Doctors at the hospital did not take an X-ray and failed to diagnose his neck fracture. They discharged him without further investigation.
When Ed continued to experience increasing pain and discomfort, he returned to the hospital. A full assessment was conducted, and it was revealed that he did, in fact, have a fractured neck. Ed underwent two spine surgeries to repair the damage, however, he later claimed that these two surgeries were both botched. He suffered great pain and discomfort for months as a result and indicated that he interrupted his activities of daily living and regular functioning.
On the 11th of September, 2003, John Ritter, a well-known comedic actor on shows such as “Three’s Company” and “8 Simple Rules,” died as a result of an aortic dissection – also known as a tear in the inner layer of the aorta. This condition is fatal, as the aorta is the main blood vessel that transports blood away from your heart and to the rest of your body.
The signs and symptoms of aortic dissection and heart attack are very similar; thus doctors need to be stringent and follow all the necessary protocols to ensure that an accurate diagnosis is made.
