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When having a consultation with a medical professional, the assumption is that they are going to provide you with care and professional treatment. While this is ordinarily the case, there are often times when this care falls below the standard expected, and when it comes to your health, this can have a serious impact.
However, medical treatment is not always guaranteed to work. In some cases, the right steps had been taken, even if the desired outcome was not achieved. This can make determining medical negligence very difficult, as it is not always obvious whether you were the victim of bad care or just bad luck.
If you suspect that you may have suffered medical negligence, one of the best ways to determine whether you have is by looking at the common types of medical negligence.
We are going to share 5 of the most common cases for medical negligence. Due to the wide range of types, you should always speak to a solicitor to identify exactly what type of claim you should make.
Misdiagnosis occurs when a medical professional fails to diagnose what condition a patient is suffering from. This may be because they think the patient has a different illness, or because they do not notice their condition at all.
As a result of medical misdiagnosis, a patient may have been prescribed the wrong treatment or none at all, resulting in their condition worsening and potentially even being life-threatening.
Medical misdiagnosis can also take place where there was a delay in identifying the condition.
Surgery almost always comes with some inherent risk, but sometimes mistakes are made that should never happen. These ‘never events’ include foreign objects being left in patients or the wrong area of the body being operated on.
In some extreme cases, patients have even had the wrong operation performed on them as a result of clerical mistakes. Alongside mistakes, surgical negligence can also take place where an operation wasn’t necessary in the first place or the patient didn’t fully consent.
Anaesthetic is a common part of medical treatment and something most of us are given at some point in our lives, whether it be in the hospital or at the dentist.
Medical negligence can occur as a result of the improper application or a failure to monitor how it is impacting the patient. The results can range from patients waking up during surgery to brain damage as a result of a lack of oxygen.
Thousands of prescriptions are written and dispensed each day, and in rare cases, errors can occur. These mistakes may take the form of the wrong medication or dosage being given to you, medications being prescribed together that should not be, or medications being given to patients despite knowing they are allergic to them.
The consequences of the wrong medication being prescribed or dispensed to you can be serious and can range from digestive problems to death.
Most medical conditions are not cured overnight. Instead, it is likely that a patient will need long-term treatment or care. Where a medical professional fails to monitor the impact of the treatment properly or does not schedule the correct follow-up appointment, medical negligence can take place.
In these cases, negligent treatment can lead to further illness or injury or the return of the previous condition.
If you suspect that you have been the victim of medical negligence, it is important that you act sooner than later. Unless you were under 18 when the suspected negligence happened, in most cases, you only have three years from the date you first realised you had been a victim of medical negligence to make a claim.
While this may seem like a long time, medical negligence claims can take a long time to build, as the evidence you need to provide is extensive. Therefore, you should not waste time in speaking to a solicitor who can review your claim and begin building your case.
So, if negligent medical care has resulted in injury to you, get in touch with the personalinjuriessolicitorsdublin team to learn how we can help you.