Whether they are acting as a practitioner directly providing care to patients or as an assistant to another healthcare professional performing surgery or providing inpatient care, nurses are essential to the day-to-day function of virtually every healthcare facility in Connecticut. Unfortunately, not everyone who fills this vital role does so with the care and consideration they should, and that sometimes leads to patients suffering avoidable harm from people who were supposed to help them get better.
If you suspect that a nurse’s negligence is what led to your injuries, reaching out to a medical malpractice lawyer should be a top priority. Our New Haven nursing malpractice lawyers can look into your case and help you understand your compensation options.
Legally speaking, a nurse commits medical malpractice if they violate the “standard of care” expected of nurses with equivalent knowledge and experience working under similar conditions. More specifically, once a nurse establishes a doctor-patient relationship with someone, that nurse has a legal obligation to demonstrate the same level of competence and care that any reasonable nurse would. Any failure to do so which directly results in their patient suffering preventable physical harm could constitute legally actionable negligence.
Nursing malpractice can encompass various actions or inactions, ranging from obvious errors like incorrectly administering treatment or neglecting routine care for inpatients to subtler mistakes such as providing the wrong medication or failing to maintain accurate care records. A New Haven nursing malpractice attorney can help pursue legal action over any misconduct by a nurse that results in preventable harm, regardless of how subjectively severe the misconduct was.
While the nurse who directly engaged in misconduct is the most obvious person to be named as a defendant in an ensuing malpractice claim, they are rarely the only person or entity that holds civil liability for a patient’s injury. For example, it is very often possible to hold the healthcare provider that employed a negligent nurse “vicariously liable” for their employee’s misconduct or directly liable for their own negligent hiring, training, or oversight of employees.
Likewise, there are often multiple people directly involved in the mistreatment of a single patient—for instance, a patient getting the wrong medication may stem from a doctor prescribing the wrong medicine in the first place, a pharmacy filling the prescription incorrectly, or a nurse mixing up pill bottles. Sorting out exactly who holds the blame for a specific injury and holding them all accountable for the effects of their misconduct can be much easier with guidance from a seasoned nursing malpractice lawyer in New Haven.
Misconduct by anyone in a medical setting can have dire repercussions, and nurses are certainly no exception. If your injury or illness got worse because you did not receive appropriate care from a nurse, they—and various other people and companies—may hold civil liability for any losses you have suffered as a result.
A New Haven nursing malpractice lawyer can discuss your legal rights and options in detail with you during a free consultation. Call Berkowitz Hanna today to schedule yours.
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