Personal injury can take many forms, but in the area of law, this refers to an injury that you received through no fault of your own, and if it were not for the negligence of another, this injury would not have occurred. A personal injury can sometimes happen because of a car driver or due to the negligence of a business's failure to maintain a safe environment for their customers. But one important area of personal injury is negligence that leads to injury in a hospital. The following are a few examples of this.
You are given the wrong medication
This can happen for many reasons. A nurse gave you the wrong medication. Sometimes, though, it may be the right medication with the wrong dosage. Often the source of the negligence is that the hospital staff was not following the proper procedure. For example, if one of the hospital staff members failed to note your known allergies in your chart and gave you medicine that you are allergic to, then you could have an adverse reaction. These mistakes do not always lead to harm, but when they do, there is likely a case of personal injury.
You contract an infection
People often think of hospitals as being clean, and to a large extent they are clean; however, they are not pristine. There are many sources of infection, especially bacterial infections. While you are in the hospital, you may find yourself with an infection that causes a longer stay than you anticipated. Often, you may not know about the infection until after you are released from the hospital, and you may need to be readmitted.
For elderly patients, these infections can be serious. Elderly patients in nursing homes often get infections due to neglect of their hygiene. People with advanced age may not even be aware of their condition, and it is up to a loved one to step in and fight for their rights.
You can be misdiagnosed
A misdiagnosis can cause a great amount of harm. There is the issue of being given a treatment that can be harmful unless a patient has the health problem they have been diagnosed with. But even when the treatment does no harm, there is the lost time when a patient did not receive proper treatment, and this can create serious consequences. An important thing to keep in mind is that misdiagnosis itself does not constitute negligence. Doctors can be wrong. It is when standard tests or medical procedures are not done given the symptoms a patient presents. This is negligence that can cause personal injury.
There are many forms of personal injury that can happen in a hospital. You can be given the wrong medication, misdiagnosed, or contract an infection. But any action that is negligent and causes you injury may be something that creates a personal injury case. For more information about how a personal injury lawyer can help you in these cases, contact a local practice.
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