The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of a major hospital is one of the most stressful and high-stakes working environments that any medical professional can have, and the doctors who provide life-saving care to premature babies there have incredibly important jobs. Still, difficult working conditions do not excuse medical mistakes. If a doctor’s error in the NICU causes harm to a newborn, they can still be held civilly liable.
If your child suffered preventable harm because of a doctor’s misconduct inside a NICU, you should speak with a Connecticut NICU malpractice lawyer about your legal options. Suing in this way can be difficult, but with the support of our compassionate birth injury attorneys at Berkowitz Hanna, you can hold negligent providers accountable and seek justice for your family.
Any baby admitted to a NICU is already in a fragile condition, which means every physician in that unit must act with the highest level of care, attention, and professionalism. However, even when NICU staff provide appropriate medical treatment, they cannot guarantee a positive outcome. Courts in Connecticut have consistently held that NICU doctors, like all other physicians, are not automatically liable for every adverse result a patient may experience.
What does make a NICU doctor potentially liable for damages is a breach in the “standard of care” they owed to a patient, meaning an extremely reckless or careless act which no equally qualified physician would have engaged in under the same working conditions. With this in mind, errors like improper intubation, failure to diagnose injuries or illnesses correctly despite having enough information to reasonably do so, and failure to monitor an infant’s vital signs closely enough to avoid preventable harm could all potentially qualify as standard of care violations that a Connecticut NICU malpractice attorney could help take legal action over.
Even if there is substantial evidence indicating that a NICU doctor failed to provide an appropriate standard of care to your child and caused them harm, Connecticut civil law requires you to go through what is known as a “reasonable inquiry” process to get formal support for your claim. This involves sharing all the evidence you have with a medical expert qualified to practice in the same area(s) as the doctor(s) you are suing, and getting that expert to certify through a signed statement under oath that they believe a legally actionable standard of care violation occurred.
You will also need to have at least one qualified medical expert, which can be but does not have to be the same one involved in the “reasonable inquiry” process, testify on your behalf in court. This expert must affirm that substandard care occurred and that it was the main and direct cause of the losses for which you are seeking compensation. Guidance from a knowledgeable NICU malpractice lawyer in Connecticut can be crucial to complying with these and other procedural requirements in a timely manner.
You have every right to trust that the physicians caring for your child in a neonatal intensive care unit will do everything in their power to ensure your child is healthy and can live a full life after they leave the hospital. If your child’s NICU doctors instead violated that trust, you also have the right to demand civil compensation from them.
A Connecticut NICU malpractice lawyer from Berkowitz and Hanna LLC can be a steadfast ally from start to finish of your legal proceedings, helping you protect your family’s best interests and giving you the best possible chances of case success. To learn more about your options and how we can help, reach out to our office today. Your initial consultation is completely free of charge.
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