Committed to Protecting Patients Harmed by Environmental Events in Medical Care.
Establishing your right to compensation after suffering harm because a doctor’s direct negligent actions caused you harm can be complicated enough—you may be unaware of what actually caused your harm or what caused your condition to worsen instead of improving. What happens when something unexpected happens in the course of treatment that causes harm? The medical community has established a list of occurrences known as “never events” that are so egregious and shocking that they should never occur when you are receiving treatment by trained medical staff. Some of these never events include certain environmental events that can occur in a Florida medical facility—and you likely may not even realize that these errors are so preventable that you may have a right to recover compensation if you are harmed when they occur. The Florida medical environmental event lawyers at Gonzalez & Cartwright, P.A. can help.
At Gonzalez & Cartwright, P.A., our skilled medical malpractice lawyers are passionate about keeping our Palm Beach County medical facilities safe for patients. If you were harmed because of errors in administering oxygen or gas, were the victim of an electric shock or burn, or were injured by hospital bedrails or restraints, you may have the right to compensation based on an environmental event in a medical facility. Call us today so that we can explore every avenue possible for recovering full and fair compensation if you were harmed by an environmental event while receiving treatment in one of our hospitals or medical facilities.
What Constitutes an Environmental Event in a Florida Hospital or Medical Facility?
While patients can obviously be harmed while receiving direct medical treatment in the hands of a negligent or reckless doctor or medical professional, other types of harm can occur while receiving care in a hospital or medical facility because of negligence in maintaining certain environmental features of the facility itself. Examples of environmental events that are classified as “never events” and may give rise to a cause of action for medical malpractice in Florida include:
- Errors in receiving oxygen or gas. When a serious disability or death is caused by mistakes involving the receipt of oxygen or gas, a “never event” has occurred. This includes situations where the oxygen or gas line was contaminated, contained the wrong gas or even contained no gas or oxygen at all.
- Electric shock. If a patient or medical staff member suffers a serious disability or death because of an electric shock that occurs while that patient is receiving medical care in a healthcare facility, a “never event” has occurred.
- Burns. Serious injuries caused by burns while receiving care in a medical facility—whether a patient or medical staff member was the victim—should never occur under any circumstances.
- Bedrails and restraints. Hospital and medical bedrails can be surprisingly dangerous if proper care is not exercised. Injuries or death associated with bedrails or the use of restraints are deemed medical “never events”.
We Fight Vigorously for Clients Injured by Environmental Events Classified as Medical “Never Events”
It happens all too frequently in Florida—you entered a medical facility for treatment and were seriously injured because of some environmental aspect of the facility that was negligently maintained. Medical facilities contain dangerous materials, which makes sense because items like gas and electric shock machines are completely necessary to saving lives on a daily basis. Despite this, the presence of these dangers means that medical staff must be appropriately trained to maintain and use these materials, and this training should include aspects designed to prevent any harm to patients.
Recovering Compensation For:
- All medical expenses associated with your injury,
- Rehabilitative care,
- Pain and suffering,
- Lost wages and earning capacity,
- Loss of consortium or financial support in wrongful death cases,
- Funeral expenses.
Schedule a Free Initial Consultation
When you enter a hospital or healthcare facility for treatment in Florida, you simply should not have to worry about sustaining injuries through environmental events that would be entirely preventable if the facility exercised the degree of care necessary to protect patients. Call our offices today, or fill out this secure online contact form, to schedule a free initial consultation to tell our Florida medical environmental event lawyers how you were injured. We always provide clients with our honest opinion as to the viability of their case and options for recovering financial compensation from a negligent healthcare provider and are fully bilingual in Spanish and English.
Frequently Asked Questions About Medical Environmental Events in Florida
Bed Rails can be relatively safe as long as the patient has a relatively normal amount of strength and is mentally and cognitively stable. The fact is, bed rails are often used in situations where the exact opposite is true—for patients who are moderately sedated or who may be prone to suffering falls from bed. Patients commonly become wedged between the bedrail and a mattress, may be unable to remove themselves and can suffer injury or become unable to breath. In some cases, this may occur because the mattress and the bedrail do not fit together properly, as beds in hospitals and medical facilities are often taken apart and put back together again—and if the facility contains multiple sizes of beds and mattresses, it is critical that staff members check to ensure that the right bedrail is matched with the right mattress. Failure to do so is negligence, and when patients are harmed as a result, you deserve compensation for that harm.
Our lawyers understand how difficult it is to get the compensation you deserve through the U.S. legal system when you are worried about your immigration or legal status in this country. In many cases, there is never a need to go to court because medical insurance companies are more inclined to settle the case fairly when a listed “never event” is involved. Our lawyers have the skills necessary to win compensation in your case without ever setting foot in the court, and are always aware of our clients’ own preferences for litigating a case or settling out of court.