Surgical errors are one form of medical malpractice you may suffer at the hands of a negligent surgeon or another physician working at the hospital. Hiring a surgical error lawyer to evaluate whether or not you have reason to sue for what you’ve experienced can help you win compensation for any suffering you’ve endured. Below are just some of the reasons you should seek justice after experiencing a surgical mishap.
Ask a Surgical Error Lawyer: 7 Reasons to Sue for Surgical Error
1. To Pay Your Medical Bills
If your surgeon made an error, then you shouldn’t be expected to pay for the medical care you received. In some cases, they may have performed the entirely wrong surgery, so it would be appalling for them to expect you to cover the cost of this. Some hospitals may offer to waive your recent medical bill, but other times you’ll have to sue to have these costs covered.
The settlement you’ll get when you make a claim for medical negligence against a surgeon or another physician will include a claim for the cost of your care. The best surgical error lawyer Baltimore has to offer will make sure of that.
2. To Pay for Future Medical Costs
Some surgical error cases are more serious than others. You may have been left with lasting damage to one of your major organs. This is common in wrong-site operations or during surgeries where the physician accidentally nicked an artery or damaged an organ other than the one they were supposed to be operating on.
You may need to be on medication for the rest of your life to combat the damage done during your surgery. In more serious cases, you may need an organ transplant. For example, this may be required if you had a damaged left kidney but your surgeon removed the right one instead. These costs add up, and a settlement will cover the cost based on an estimate made regarding your medical bills for the foreseeable future.
3. To Compensate You for Your Emotional Damages
Surgery is emotionally draining, even when it goes well. So, if something went wrong, then you may be left emotionally scarred, and you can therefore win compensation for this emotional distress. If you’re angry and would like to punish the physician who made the error, then winning emotional damages in your settlement may be good closure for you.
In some cases, that error may have even left you with PTSD that requires treatment in therapy or medication to deal with. Your settlement can cover the cost of this, too. It’s not uncommon for people who, for example, woke up during surgery due to a mistake made by the anaesthesiologist to require treatment for their mental health after the ordeal.
4. To Compensate for Any Income Lost While You Were Ill
If the surgical error required you to take extra time off work, then this lost income can be added to your settlement. The sum will cover your regular income lost during this period, along with any bonuses you would have earned had you been working. This can be incredibly helpful for somebody who’s been through an ordeal such as a surgical error. You won’t need to worry about having less money than you anticipated or having your life thrown off balance by it.
If the error required you to leave your job, then you can be compensated for this, too.
5. To Compensate for Any Future Loss of Income
Some surgical errors may leave you permanently ill and unable to work. Others, such as the surgeon removing the wrong kidney and leaving you needing dialysis for the foreseeable future, can mean you must step down from full-time work into part-time work. This income difference can be added to your settlement to help you cover all financial losses.
6. To Seek Punitive Damages
Punitive damages are an additional sum added to your settlement. These are usually added to punish the person who wronged you and deter others from making their mistakes. Although winning punitive damages in medical malpractice cases is rare, it can happen.
Punitive damages are usually awarded if the malpractice may be considered malicious. Surgical errors are rarely due to malice, but in some extreme cases where you have a poor personal history with the surgeon, they may be. You should most definitely seek punitive damages if you believe this to be the case regarding your surgical error.
7. To Seek Justice
You may not even care about winning a settlement. You may just want the surgeon who harmed you to pay for what they’ve done. It’s perfectly okay to make a medical malpractice claim against them simply because you want justice. The compensation you win will feel like a bonus alongside justice being served.
Surgical errors should never go unpunished. You’re entitled to compensation for any traumatizing ordeal you’ve been through. If you make a medical malpractice claim now, then you may stop a negligent doctor from continuing their behavior and harming somebody else in the future.