Medical Malpractice: Who Is Responsible?

Victims of medical malpractice go through immense physical and emotional pain.

Negligence of a health care provider not only causes injury or illness to the patient, but also inflicts mental stress and emotional trauma to their family members. To make matters worse, the victim may have to spend huge sums of money on medical treatment for the injury or illness caused by medical negligence. In some unfortunate cases, the victim may even lose their life because of medical negligence, and their family suffers greatly.

The Complication of Medical Malpractice

To take the financial burden off the victim or their family members, it is important that a lawsuit is filed to claim compensation from the party at fault. However, medical malpractice cases are complicated and it may become difficult to figure out who is responsible for the negligence. You would certainly need the services of a competent Missouri medical malpractice lawyer to help establish accountability, investigate and litigate the case. Anyone including physicians, hospital staff, nurses, pharmacists, or any other health care provider can be held responsible in a medical malpractice case.

Who Is Responsible?

A doctor or surgeon may be held responsible in cases of prescription drug errors, surgical error, misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, or inadequate and negligent after care. If the physician or doctor has acted negligently in diagnosing a disease, offering correct treatment for the condition, prescribing wrong medication or wrong dosage of a medication, follow up or after care they can be sued for medical negligence.

Surgeons can also act negligently by performing wrong site surgery, wrong person surgery, leaving a foreign object inside the patient’s body, causing infection, or performing a wrong procedure. Poor surgical outcome also constitutes medical malpractice. For any such act of negligence on the part of the surgeon, you can file a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Nurses and other hospital staff can also be held responsible for medical malpractice. If a nurse fails to provide the right dosage of the medication at the right time that caused harm to the patient, the nurse can be sued for medical negligence. Any other hospital staff member that is involved in the procedure that was performed negligently can also be held responsible for medical malpractice.

Understanding the Liability of Hospitals and Pharmacists

Hospitals are often sued for various kinds of medical negligence. Hospitals can be held liable for negligence if they have faltered in hiring health care employees who have acted negligently, prescribing the wrong medication or giving the wrong dosage, if the staff members falter in diagnosing or treating a condition, or if the refuse to admit the patient. Pharmacists can also be held liable in a medical malpractice case if they give a wrong medication, or fail to label with warning stickers. If a medication or medical device has harmed the patient, the patient may sue the manufacturing company.

If you or your loved one has suffered at the hands of a negligent health care provider, contact Zevan and Davidson Law Firm at (314) 588-7200. We can see you through the legal maze of medical malpractice.

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