Medical Malpraictce Lawsuits For The Benefit Of Children Seriously Hurt From Nursing Malpractice End In Multi-Million Jury Awards
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-09-15 22:41:41 | Word Count: 808
Nurses play a critical role in the medical health care system. Nurses frequently often are the ones who track patients and letting physicians know of any change in the patient's condition that could affect the patient's wellbeing. Sometimes, however, perhaps from insufficient knowledge, training, or experience, a nurse does not either observe that there has been a worsening of the patient's condition or fails to report that change to a physician.
First, look at a claim that was reported which involved a near full-term pregnant woman. The expectant mother went to the hospital after bouts of nausea and vomiting. After she was admitted a nurse trainee examined the woman and checked her condition. The nurse trainee connected the mother to a fetal heart rate monitor to check on the unborn baby. The strip indicated that the woman's unborn baby was in severe fetal distress. It was that nurse trainee, however, rather than an experienced doctor or nurse, who read the tracings from the fetal heart rate monitor. The nurse trainee incorrectly read the strip as normal. Lacking any supervision by a physician or a registered nurse, the nurse trainee failed to take any action to protect the health of the baby and simply sent her home.
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The childbirth occurred three days after the visit to the hospitalafter 3 days. This was the scheduled delivery date. She was born with severe brain injury and developed cerebral palsy. The baby had a seizure disorder. She could not eat without the help of a feeding tube. She needed therapy to keep her body from atrophying. She died at age 4 from cerebral palsy complications. She was survived by her parents and by her 2 older brothers. One was eleven and the other was sixteen. The law firm that handled this matter on behalf of the family reported that the case went to trial and that the jury awarded the parents $4.4 million.
Next Look at a recently published lawsuit regarding a pregnant woman who was admitted to the hospital for a scheduled vaginal delivery of her child. She had a C-section in an earlier pregnancy. Still, the nurse applied a drug commonly used to induce labor. The application of this drug , however, needs to be properly supervised since it can result in hyperstimulation of the uterus and turn into a significant complication especially at greater dosages. The nurse failed to inform the attending doctor that the pregnant woman's contractions became irregular Instead, as the contractions increased to obviously unsafe levels, the nurse kept using additional amounts the drug.
The expectant mother suffered a uterine rupture. The unborn child was in fetal distress. The child was deprived of oxygen for 18-20 minutes as a consequence of which he sustained a brain injury. The diagnosis: cerebral palsy. As a result, the child will never be able to talk or to walk. He will never be able to hold anything in his hands. He will never be able to eat on his own. He will always need to be fed with a feeding tube. He will always need full-time life assistance. He does, though, recognize his family and he is aware. The law firm that handled this matter reported that the lawsuit went to trial and the jury returned a verdict of $31 Million. This amount included $26,000,000 for the cost of future medical care.
As the 2 claims discussed establish, an error on the part of a nurse may have tragic consequences for a patient, and in case of a pregnancy, two lives are in danger. The nurse may later face a medical malpractice lawsuit. With the severity of the harm that can result to both the mother and the baby from these kinds of mistakes the recovery from such a lawsuit can be significant. In case you feel your child experienced a significant injury due to a nurse's mistake, you ought to contact a medical malpractice attorney. Since a plaintiff only has a limited amount of time to file a lawsuit in Court you ought to contact a lawyer right away.
If your infant suffered a group b strep related injury and you believe medical malpractice was involved, you should consult an a lawyer at once. The lawyer ought to be able to inform you how much time, if any, remains to file a lawsuit and assist you in finding out whether to go forward with a claim.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting catastrophic injury and medical malpractice cases. For additional information about fetal distress and other birth injury visit the website
