Are the Hospitals Negligent?

[bdhill11]

Hello, I'm located in the state of Maryland. My question is regarding my 83 year old mother. She had Alzheimer's. On April 15th she was complaining of pain in her arm and she had shortness of breath and swelling in her legs, so I took her to the emergency room at Holy Cross Hospital--they said it was arthritis and too much salt in her diet and they sent her back home.

On June 2, she had the same complaints and she was taken to Washington Adventist Hospital emergency room. They also took x-rays and sent her back home--no problems found. On June 4th, she again had the same complaints so she was taken back to the same emergency room, x-rayed again and this time admitted for pneumonia. When I went to check on her the following morning she was in full cardiac arrest and we were told that she had a massive hiatal hernia pressing against her lungs and had caused her stomach to be relocated to her chest cavity. She remained on life support until she was moved from ICU and consequently passed away on June 27, 2011

I’m no doctor but I don’t think this is something that occurs over a matter of days. I think both hospitals missed the boat on this on her initial visits. Should I have an attorney look into this matter for negligence on the part of the hospitals in not detecting these problems upon her initial visits?

Thanks

 

[Mass_Shyster]

I'm sorry for your loss.

To be completely blunt, I don't think your case would be worth an attorney's time. The costs to mount a malpractice suit are pretty high. You would have to prove that the hospitals missed something, and that missing it caused the death. The defense will claim that even if they missed something, there was nothing that could be done to save her life anyway.

The other part is calculating damages. Damages can run high for a young person with a lifetime of earning capability in front of them. There really isn't much of an earning capability for an 83 year old woman with Alzheimer's.

The other part of damages would be loss of consortium. How great is your loss because your mother died when she did, as opposed to when she would have died if they had found and treated whatever problem she had.

You should certainly talk to a few lawyers, but I think you should be prepared to hear that most are not willing, for one reason or another, to take the case.

 

[ecmst12]

It is completely believable that a patient, especially an elderly, frail patient, could have no pneumonia on 6/2 and have serious pneumonia on 6/4. It really can happen that quickly.