Caring About Clinical Negligence
A short editorial about how when your medical needs are not met you might take recourse with the law where a duty of care is found lacking.
Whilst everybody takes responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, there are times in everybody’s life when medical care is needed. This might be because of an illness which needs hospital care and treatment, or an accident where an emergency operation is required. Whatever the circumstances, when you are in that position of relying on health professionals, you put yourself in their hands and expect a certain standard of care.
There is accountability for all actions when it comes to putting your life and health into the trained and qualified care of the medical profession. A certain duty of care is implicit in this, and although people cannot expect doctors and surgeons and the suchlike to be miracle workers, they can expect them to be consummate professionals when it comes to following the necessary rules and regulations put in place for specific procedures. If something goes awry though, which is not just determined by your state of health, but because of some action or possible inaction on the part of the people looking after you, then there is no reason why you simply have to accept that. Sometimes it is not always so clear whether you could claim for clinical negligence, but legal experts who focus in on this niche area can certainly give a good indication of where the land lies in terms of whether there has been a lapse in the duty of care. Sometimes people brush off events in their life as fate or bad luck, but the reality is that where responsibility can be allocated and accounted for there is something to be said for ensuring that this has been upheld. It is not the threat of legal action which stimulates the health profession to work diligently and meet strict standards, but understanding that there may be legal repercussions if these are not strictly adhered to is a positive reinforcement.
The reality is that when something goes wrong that should not have gone wrong, when you have put your trust in others, the results can be devastating for the individual. Long term illness and injury can follow with this affecting income, quality of life and in some cases every aspect of how and what somebody does day to day. If there can be some financial respite for such dire consequences, then a legal professional can start to help to heal these monetary wounds through legal action.
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