Emergency Room Delays Cause Patient Injuries And Is New York Medical Malpractice

Hospitals

When a patient goes to the emergency room, he or she expects immediate treatment. After all the patient would not go to the emergency room in the first place! It can be expensive with insurance penalties if there is no true emergency. And when a patient goes to the emergency room in an ambulance, it is expected the treatment will be quickly rendered.

However, this is not always the case. Sometimes the emergency rooms are busy places with multiple emergencies at once. Staff shortages could also make it difficult to treat all patients. Nurses triaging patients could also fail to take several things into consideration or take the WRONG things into consideration, such as pain, even though the situation may be very serious.

Other times the emergency department is just too busy to adequately treat all patients, and there is a limited amount of equipment available for use. This means ct-scans, x-rays, MRIs, sonograms, and other imaging may not be available quick enough to evaluate patients. This can limit what can be done to a patient while the treatment is still be accessed.

There are many medical conditions which patients present at the emergency department and emergency room which require immediate evaluation, and usually immediate treatment. This includes the following:

Heart attack;
Stroke;
Traumatic injury;
Serious bleeding injury;
Appendicitis;
Pulmonary embolism;
Unconsciousness;
Not breathing;
Seizures;
Severely dislocated joint or extremity;
Serious head injury with brain swelling; and
Other life-threatening injuries.

If a hospital fails to properly evaluate and treat these serious health conditions, it can result in serious personal injuries to a patient and result in New York medical malpractice. It can also lead to a wrongful death of a patient.

Many times these conditions can be quickly stabilized to save a patient, but healthcare providers do not do anything until it is too late. Other times a simple drug can be given to help alleviate the serious condition such as for a stroke and heart attack.

These delays in treatment can be deadly and dangerous, and a victim of delayed treatment in an emergency room should be compensated for his or her injuries. These should be compensated and taken care of immediately.

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.