Emergency Room Visits and Liability Concerns
No one truly wants to go to the ER. You have to wait too long. You will only get to see an overworked physician for two and a half minutes, who is trying to do their best, but then they have to leave to go attend to someone more emergent than you. It is no wonder that people make mistakes in the ER. Overcrowded with people with nowhere else to go, a day at the ER is not an ideal situation for the doctors or the estimated 129.8 million people that visit the ER annually.
What Can Go Wrong?
Most healthcare professionals are held to high standards, which they strive for and often live up to. The vast majority of the time you can go to an ER or your local doctor and be diagnosed and treated without incident. It is, after all, the doctor’s job to help you and remedy your ailments. No matter how dedicated the physician, how well-respected the hospital or clinic, or how accurately you provide your medical history, things can still go wrong.
In a chaotic environment, miscommunications can surface; critical information may be mixed up or written down incorrectly on a patient chart. Improper dosages of medication can be administered. Things such as this may cause new injuries, ailments or anxieties, or may cause pre-existing conditions to re-surface or become aggravated. It may take too long for a physician to get to you in the waiting room, causing permanent or debilitating physical consequences that could have been avoided, had your injuries or condition been assessed sooner.
Complications may not be immediately apparent after treatment, but may surface after some time. That is why there is a protection on legal claims in Florida that gives a person two years from the date of the incident or date of discovery where the person knew or should have known they suffered an injury from medical personnel. This “statute of limitations” is designed to be a balance between barring claims that allow too much time to pass and are thus too attenuated to be attributed to the event alleged, with the need for people to allow some time to pass so they can gauge possible complications.
Florida Medical Malpractice and Emergency Room Negligence Attorneys
When doctors are careless and make mistakes that lead to an innocent patient’s death or injury, they must be held accountable for their actions. Our knowledgeable medical malpractice lawyers have experience in working with emergency room visit claims, anesthesia or medication errors, and other areas involving doctor negligence. We know how to work with hospitals, other lawyers, and insurance companies to ensure that you receive the compensation you are entitled to under Florida law. In legal areas such as medical malpractice, it is important to seek legal advice as soon as possible after realizing that you have been harmed due to a physician’s care, since failure to file a claim in a timely fashion may forever bar your legal claim. You should not suffer because of the mistakes of others; contact Alan Goldfarb P.A.’s Miami, Florida office and learn more about your legal rights today.
