When patients suffer harm due to the negligence of healthcare providers, the consequences can be devastating for not just them, but their families as well. In these cases, it’s crucial to seek the guidance of an experienced medical negligence attorney in Kansas City to help navigate the complexities of negligence claims.
This guide is dedicated to defining medical negligence and how it can directly affect a victim’s life.
What is Medical Negligence?
When physicians or other health care providers harm patients through negligence, this is considered medical malpractice, a term used interchangeably with the term medical negligence. In order to prove medical negligence, several key elements must be established:
- Duty owed to the patient: the obligation that a healthcare provider meet the standard of care in treating a patient
- Breach of duty owed the patient: the failure of the healthcare provider to meet the standard of care
- Causation: a link between the healthcare provider’s failure to meet the standard of care and the harm caused to the patient
- Damages: the harms caused to the injured party
Medical negligence – sometimes referred to as medical errors – cause an estimated 200,000 deaths each year. Some common examples of medical negligence include:
- Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis
- Failure to timely or appropriately treat a condition
- Surgical errors
- Medication errors
- Birth injuries
- Failure to obtain informed consent
How Medical Negligence Affects Patients
Medical negligence can affect a patient’s quality of life and have huge, negative affects on their financial and physical health. Outside of visible physical injuries, victims of negligence often experience considerable pain and suffering, along with mental anguish, and emotional turmoil.
Some of the common consequences of medical negligence include:
Physical and Psychological Consequences
Physical injuries sustained from medical negligence are the most obvious consequence. These physical injuries can include, for example, brain injuries, quadriplegia, loss of the use of one or more limbs, damage to vital organs, or a combination of many of the conditions.
These injuries in turn can cause physical disability, which can cause a loss of enjoyment of other aspects of your life.
Along with this, victims may need considerable care and treatment, potentially including, successive procedures to address the conditions caused by their injuries and damages. This places the patient in additional and unnecessary physical pain and subjects them to additional recovery time and risk.
In addition, victims of medical negligence may be caused severe physical pain, as well as mental and emotional suffering. Oftentimes, the permanent physical, psychological, and/or emotional consequences can have the most detrimental effect on a victim’s life.
Financial Consequences
Furthermore, often for victims, there is a loss of income after medical negligence, as they cannot work after the incident.
Victims of medical negligence may be caused to incur considerable financial burdens. For example, their injuries may require them to undergo significant medical treatment and unplanned for expensive medical bills.
In sum, the concurrent and future financial burdens imposed on the victim’s and victim’s families can add incredible stress to an already strained situation.
Holding Negligent Providers Accountable: Speak with a Medical Negligence Attorney
In Kansas City, victims of medical negligence have a trusted ally in Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader. With over four decades of handling complex medical malpractice cases, our team is committed to holding negligent healthcare providers accountable and securing justice for those harmed.
If you or a loved one have suffered due to medical negligence, take the first steps towards justice and call our office at (913) 266-2300 to speak with a member of our team.
The above is not intended to be legal advice. Each individual case is different and must be analyzed on its own set of facts and circumstances. If you believe you may have a case, it is critically important that you timely contact a lawyer to ensure your rights are protected.
