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Going to the emergency room under any circumstances can be a traumatic and nerve-wracking experience. However, you should at least be able to trust that every doctor, nurse, specialist, and surgeon working in the ER will provide prompt, considerate, and high-quality care. Unfortunately, mistakes in the ER are all too common around Connecticut, and they sometimes have consequences for patients even worse than the conditions which brought them to the hospital in the first place.
Taking effective legal action against a negligent ER doctor is possible with help from a New Haven emergency room error lawyer. Our seasoned malpractice attorneys at Berkowitz Hanna can help you build the strongest case possible and demand fair restitution for all your short-term and long-term losses.
As stressful and hectic as emergency rooms can be to work in, the physicians who practice medicine in this kind of environment are still expected to meet a reasonable “standard of care” for all their patients. In a nutshell, this “standard” is based on what equally qualified and experienced physicians would do under similar circumstances. If a doctor does something so reckless or careless that no other doctor would have done the same thing in the same situation, they may have engaged in malpractice.
In the emergency room, mistakes that may meet these criteria may include:
As a knowledgeable local attorney can explain, these types of emergency room errors may stem from miscommunication between hospital employees, lack of training or experience, lack of sufficient ER staff, or simple carelessness—or even impairment from alcohol or drugs—by staff members.
Proving that an ER doctor violated an applicable standard of care is complicated, even by the standards of other personal injury lawsuits. Most notably, state law requires anyone intending to sue any medical professional for negligence to first make a “reasonable inquiry” with another qualified medical professional, who must agree and affirm in writing that the patient has valid grounds to file suit.
Additionally, the patient must establish that a doctor-patient relationship existed between the provider and themselves. In other words, they must show that an allegedly negligent physician was actually providing treatment to them in some way. Finally, the patient must prove that all damages they are seeking restitution for stemmed directly from a specific negligent act or omission from their named defendant(s). An ER error lawyer in New Haven can provide vital assistance in fulfilling these and other procedural requirements for a lawsuit.
Mistakes in the emergency room can have disproportionately severe consequences even compared to other instances of malpractice. If you fail to enforce your legal right to pursue financial recovery after being hurt under circumstances like this, you might have no choice but to pay for all the physical, financial, and personal repercussions of your injuries yourself.
A New Haven emergency room error lawyer can work diligently on your behalf to pursue the best possible result for your situation. To set up a free consultation with a member of the Berkowitz Hanna legal team, give us a call today.
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