Nurses Can Cause Medical Malpractice Too

All medical professionals are held to high standards of patient care.  This includes nurses.  Patients who receive substandard care and are injured as a result, may be able to take legal action against the nurse’s employer.  If you have been injured due to the negligence of a nurse, contact a Kingston, New York medical malpractice attorney to evaluate your case.

The standard of care nurses are held to is an important matter given the amount of responsibility nurses hold.  In hospitals, nurses will carry out the majority of patient care.  They carry out doctor’s orders, administer medication, respond to patients’ needs, monitor medical equipment, and act as a go-between for patients to doctors.

Nursing malpractice is the failure of a nurse to provide a patient with proper or adequate care.  This can be done through action or inaction.  Examples of nursing malpractice include:

• Administering the wrong medication
• Delayed response to a patient’s distress call
• Negligently monitoring a patient after surgery
• Forgetting to write down the medications administered on a patient’s chart
• Failure to listen to a patient’s complaints of certain symptoms
• Failure to relate symptoms to the attending physician
• Administering care without checking the patient’s chart
• Improperly performing a medical procedure
• Misreading or failing to monitor medical equipment

When a nurse makes a mistake, it is typically the employer who will be held accountable.  Typically this is a hospital or other type of medical facility.  An injured patient can seek compensation for damages such as:

• Assistive devices or in-home care,
• Emotional trauma,
• Future loss of earnings,
• Future medical care,
• Lost earnings while unable to work,
• Medical expenses,
• Pain and suffering, and
• Physical therapy.

Nurses may make a mistake or act in a negligent way.  This can cause a patient to suffer harm.  Should this occur, injured patients may be able to seek financial compensation for their physical, financial, and emotional harm through a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital or medical facility that employs the nurse.  If you or a loved one has been injured as the result of a nurses malpractice, contact an experienced Kingston, New York medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible to evaluate your case.

But what do you think?  I would love to hear from you!  Leave a comment or I also welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@fishermalpracticelaw.com.  You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.