Last week, one of my friends took ill during a business trip in Moscow. For no apparent reason, he started to feel dizzy and actually passed out at the table during a meeting. Scared and confused, his colleagues called for an ambulance. Although my friend quickly regained consciousness, he awoke to a pretty scary situation. Firstly, he had no recollection of what happened and when he came round, was surrounded by colleagues and others who had all reverted to their native tongue in a moment of panic. Secondly, upon being picked up by the ambulance and arriving at the hospital, the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. There was talk of an operation and other sorts of treatments – all from doctors and nurses who could speak broken English at best.
The first thing that comes to mind is inevitably ‘I wish I was back in my own country’. Back to a situation which you are familiar with and where you trust the doctors. An environment that is safe and also medical treatment that you know you have (or should have) insurance or similar to pay for. Thankfully my friend did not have to get an operation and made a full recovery. He still doesn’t know what happened!
The fact of the matter is, you can get seriously bad health care in your own country! When I was younger, I went for a (what was supposed to be) routine operation to have my tonsils removed. Unfortunately, the anesthetist was incompetent and didn’t check if I had any lose teeth or any other problems. To cut a long story short, the tooth ended up lodged under my eye socket and it took 5 hours of keyhole surgery to remove. A VERY unpleasant experience!
Receiving substandard medical care can be a traumatic experience, especially if you don’t know exactly how it will affect your health and your future. Thankfully, I made a full recovery and have full use of my left eye. Victims of medical negligence often feel bewildered and confused, so it can be difficult to know what the step to take next. While medical solicitors can be a great help if you’re pursuing damages for negligence, understanding the process is slightly more difficult. In the UK, it is quite uncommon to sue (I didn’t) but is becoming increasingly more so – Especially for those who have received private health care. My understanding is that with private medical care, the individual doctor is responsible for you in contrast to NHS (National Health Service) care, where the NHS as an organisation is responsible. Here’s a primer on medical compensation and how to win it.
Understanding clinical negligence. Clinical negligence (sometimes known as ‘medical negligence’) happens when your doctor doesn’t meet the minimum professional standards set forth by the industry. Clinical negligence is so formidable because it can lead to an injury with lifelong consequences or in some cases, even death. The parameters for negligence are fairly broad; it can occur when a doctor misdiagnoses a patient or doesn’t reach a diagnosis in a reasonable amount of time. It can also occur when a doctor doesn’t inform a patient of the risks associated with a certain treatment, or writes the wrong prescription. In most cases in which the patient leaves the doctor’s care worse than how he or she entered it, there’s a case for negligence.
Deciding which damages to file for. When you file for damages resulting from clinical negligence, there are several kinds of cases that you could pursue. If you’re hoping to gain compensation for the pain and suffering caused by your negligence, you will want to file for general damages. More specifically, you can file a claim for special damages, which will cover any of the costs you’ve already incurred on medical expenses, including corrective treatment after your negligence, as well as income that you’ve lost from not being able to work. To pay for the services of your solicitor, you can also file a claim for legal damages. You can even try to make the other party pay for interest on all the income you’ve lost.
Estimating how much you can win. No two clinical negligence cases are the same, but there are some general precedents that have been set on particular kinds of cases. A faulty sterilisation that results in a woman getting pregnant may win the patient £7,000 in court. A surgical error that results in the loss of an organ like a kidney may be worth £32,000. For a gravely impairment, like brain injury, a doctor or medical facility may be ordered to pay the victim £290,000. Even a misdiagnosis, if serious enough, could win you compensation up to £6,000 for post-traumatic stress.
Filing a claim. First and most importantly, any victim of negligence should make sure to seek corrective treatment that may be able to reverse the medical harm caused by the initial care. Then, the best way to handle clinical negligence is to seek legal representation to help you through the process. If you received care in a public facility, you can also contact Patient Advice and Liaison Service to find out what kind of support is available for you.
My Operation That Went Wrong
After my experience of getting my tooth trapped up my nose, I later found out that my tonsils had been removed incorrectly. The surgeon had made the cuts wrong and had failed to restitch the wound. To cut an even longer story short, this resulted in severe blood loss through vomiting over the next few days after being discharged from the hospital. The vomiting got worse and worse, but unfortunately only occurred when I was at home. The doctors assumed that my mum was over-exaggerating the severity of the situation until I projectile vomited across their waiting room. I will never forget the look on the consultant’s face – I was sent straight to surgery and remained on blood-transfusion drips for 2 days.
Looking back, I could almost definitely have sued for negligence. Back in the early nineties, a case like this would almost definitely never make court as these matters were just not looked at with the same priority.
All of this sounds scary! I’m not going to lie, I’ve always been terrified of the doctor.
My father was an oral surgeon, so I am horrified by what you underwent. I live in the States, so suing has been common, since it became an option. 🙂 And while I understand doctors are humans and can make mistakes – your case seems to go behind an innocent boo-boo. I’m glad you recovered fine in the end.
Suing is an option.. I thought it was mandatory 😉 Jokes! I am with you on the innocent mistakes.. some are forgiveable – others are definitely not!
Yikes, under the eye socket! That does not sound pleasant!
I know.. Im glad I dont have a wonky eye! 🙂
Wow, that is a crazy story. So glad that it all worked out in the end. I never had to deal with anything like this, but I was very close. To make a long story short had foot surgery when I was 19 because there was an issue with my ankle. We found a doctor who convinced my mom that it was a back problem and scheduled me for spinal surgery. I met with the spinal surgeon the day before and he was shocked. He said the issue was my ankle and not my back and that if he would’ve operated on me I would’ve likely ended up paralyzed. I am SO thankful the surgeon knew what he was doing.
OMG that is SO scary!!!!! That is so freaking messed up – I am also glad you had an experienced surgeon! 🙂
Wow, what a wild story!! I’m happy that everyone is safe & sound. I’m terrified of the idea of going so wrong–especially in a foreign country!
Yeh it always makes it scarier when you don’t understand the language! :S !!
nothing worse than being sick away from home. I have had a bad root canal once, in France, the dentist left some bacteria inside and with a summer heat wave it got infected. My whole face was so swollen it looked like I had a boxing fight! one eye was not opening at all my cheek was so big. Never thought about claiming anything though, I just changed dentist.
Oh man that sounds Horrible… I left stage 1 of route canal too long once and it started to swell up too. That sounds horrific though – bet you could have sued!! 🙂
Both stories are scary (it sounds like you friend might have been dehydrated?)! It’s hard because you have to trust that they are the experts, but I have seen that sort of thing happen myself. When my mom was in the hospital after a heart attack, she got a staph infection because of something they did wrong. It affected some health care she had later on when she needed antibiotics and her body was too used to the antibiotics so it couldn’t fight a fever. That’s why I’m so big on preventative health care…whatever you can do to stay out of the hospital!
I also think dehyrdation was the cause… That’s awful about your Mum – sorry! I am also with you on the prevention is better than cure 🙂
Umm terrifying! And probably much more common then you’d think. I had a really terrible medical experience when I was in grad school that I probably could and should have sued the MD over. I didn’t at the time because I was so emotional and in so much pain.
I guess medical practises take advantage of people when they are ill and hurting to sign a waiver not to sue!
That’s crazy!
Once I got a cortisone shot in my back but afterward discovered that they did a different shot. I didn’t sue, but they didn’t charge me for the procedure and asked me to sign paperwork stating that I wouldn’t sue.
That is scary! I wouldn’t have signed to make them worried! Glad to see your PR is ok 🙂
Wow, all of that sounds terrible! My wife has worked for a few hospitals and it’s funny to hear which doctors get a bad rap (because they often have complications during surgery). We even know which hospitals we want nothing to do with because they’re so terrible and the liklihood of something going wrong is quite high at these places.
Fortunately, I’ve only had 1 major surgery and it went well. However, we are making a point to eat healthy so we can avoid the doctor/hospital as much as possible when we’re older.
That is seriously scary. We ignorantly assume (or I do) that all doctors know what they are talking about. Dude – sorry to see your PR was reset to zero… how did that happen?
Pretty scary situation.
It’s no wonder anytime I’m in America, in a 2min commercial segment, 80% are lawyers saying “you don’t pay until we settle.”
Haha! I can just picture the billboards too
The worst medical negligence I’ve experienced was my family doctor failing to reach a diagnosis in a reasonable amount of time. I have a hereditary disease that I started showing symptoms of when I was five, and I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 20, and only then because I’d changed cities and therefore doctors. By not being diagnosed, I experienced a lot of unnecessary pain.
I wouldn’t sue though, I now realize that I didn’t push hard enough to make the doctor take my issues seriously. In the future, if I’m having problems, I’m going to make sure I get satisfaction!
WOW! 15 years is a long time to go unnoticed! Sorry to hear about the pain. Hopefully the fear of litigation has some benefits to motivate Doctors to do their jobs properly! 🙂
Litigation isn’t really a thing that happens much in Canada. I’m pretty sure it was a case of a lack of resources, our public health care system is very poor, so sometimes if a patient doesn’t complain loudly enough, they’ll never get referred to a specialist. Now I know better, I will complain very loudly next time!