Anyone in Louisiana who has ever undergone surgery understands that there are risks involved. Hopefully, if you’re preparing for surgery at this time or recently had a surgical procedure, your doctor and surgeon discussed all the possible adverse effects as well as what the ultimate goals were. When you entrust your health to a medical team, you have the right to reasonably assume that every person caring for you will act according to accepted safety standards.
If you suffer injury or illness, then find out staff members could easily have prevented the situation but instead dropped the ball through medical negligence of some sort, it’s understandable you’d have a strong desire to pursue justice. There are three surgical errors that are rare, although even a single incident is one too many. Knowing your rights before having surgery, as well as where to seek support if something goes wrong, are crucial factors toward seeking recovery for your losses if medical professionals provide substandard care.
Wrong-site surgery is a major problem
Let’s say doctors schedule you for a knee operation and, as you’re coming to after having been put to sleep with general anesthesia, you learn that your surgeon operated on the wrong knee. It would likely take some time for the shock and horror of such news to wear off. You’d face so many questions, including how it happened and what you can do to make things right. You’d no doubt also be wondering how to hold those who made such a terrible mistake accountable for their actions.
You were not the patient they had in mind
Perhaps even worse than finding out a surgeon operated on your wrong body part is learning that you received surgery intended for another patient. Wrong-person surgery is a major problem in many Louisiana hospitals and others throughout the nation.
Wrong surgery altogether
What if your medical team knows you are the correct patient who is to have surgery, but they accidentally do the wrong type of operation? Perhaps you were to undergo a tonsillectomy and they remove your adenoids by mistake.
Such situations can be quite devastating and dangerous as well because post-operative medical patients are at risk for infection and other ill side effects. There’s no reason you should be the one holding the bag when medical bills start to roll in, if another person’s negligence caused your injury.
