When The Law Is Not On Your Side

For many suing seems like something that any individual can do at any time to anybody. I am here to put this myth to rest and to bring to light horrible injustices that are allowed to be done everyday to normal people such as you and I.

Now to begin with, I do not endorse or encourage the act of suing just to do so. I believe that practice is deplorable and ultimately makes it so that people with legitimate claims have a harder time even getting their case to trial. Instead, I am writing because of the laws that are in place that make individuals who by all accounts should be able to sue not even get their case to the courthouse steps.

In the case of Medical Malpractice, the law leans heavily on the side of doctors with  the exception of gross negligence that results in death and other such circumstances. Those cases are naturally deserving of going to court but what about cases of negligence that puts a patients life in danger? The answer is startling. Most attorneys especially those that deal primarily with auto accidents and medical malpractice, will not take such a case to court. I have heard numerous accounts where individuals were told that you cannot sue even if a doctor "screws up".

One such case, a young woman was taken to the hospital via ambulance complaining of severe stomach pains and vomiting blood. The nightmare started when she was left waiting for six hours in the ER without any doctor ever seeing the patient. It has been my experience that usually ER doctors see patients according to their complaint, this was not the case. There was literally a crack addict who had no interest in being seen, put ahead of this person while they were literally being drained of life from eternal bleeding. The nightmare continued. Surgery was performed on the woman and she had to have most of her stomach and some intestines removed. This was an unusual case where an ulcer had ruptured and instead of the usual perforation in the stomach, the stomach actually "looked like a hand grenade was swallowed" and the stomach exploded. 

Shortly after surgery this individuals blood pressure steadily dropped until it hit 77/33 and action was taken. It was than noted that the patient had not been sewn and stapled as is customary but only stapled instead. This caused the young woman to hemorrhage again in less than a 24 hour period and had to be resuscitated before the second surgery was even performed. In this case the primary surgeon told the woman in front of witnesses, that he screwed up because he did not sew her as well as staple her.

This young woman suffers everyday with a slew of abnormal conditions. Her family doctor even told her that something is severely wrong and cannot with complete confidence tell her what due to the fact that even the medical records are in disarray and contradict each other. As appalling as this all sounds, this woman's case has not been taken to court and none of the many attorneys that she contacted would touch this case because "doctors are allowed to screw up." 

There must be changes made to the laws. How can it not be punishable to jeopardize someones life multiple times in less than 24 hour , and they are left to suffer the consequences.