Nobody wants to come in last. But when it comes to hospital safety, states don’t even celebrate coming in the middle of the pack because health care and patient safety is such an important issue. New York just received some bad news when it came in 32nd in a ranking of patient safety. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the laws in New York may throw up barriers for injured patients to bring a claim in court for medical malpractice.
One striking example of the dysfunctional New York law is in the case of a 41-year-old woman from Brooklyn. The woman went to a state hospital in 2010. She suffered chest pains and a lung X-ray revealed a nodule in her lung that raised suspicions. Unfortunately, no one looked into the matter any further and the patient was sent home and told to take aspirin. Two years later, the woman discovered that she had cancer and that her illness was terminal.
One would think that such a tragic case of a failure to diagnose lung cancer would have some repercussions for the hospital who admitted that they made a mistake with the patient. But since the statute of limitations in New York starts to run at the moment the medical error occurs, the statute had expired by the time the patient learned of her cancer two years after the fact. If the statute of limitations started to run when the mistake was discovered, then the victim here would have been able to sue the hospital for negligence.
Sadly, the woman died this year and she left behind a minor daughter who has her own health concerns, including autism. If the New York law had allowed the victim to bring a suit against the hospital, it is probable that the damages awarded would have included care for her minor daughter once the mother passed away.
The defects in the law certainly need to be addressed but until that point, patients who are injured due to a misdiagnosis should contact a New York Failure to Diagnose Cancer Lawyer. The sooner they contact a lawyer the less of a chance there is that the statute of limitations has run out.
Our
Blogs
Statute of limitations problematic for some malpractice claims
Author
Jay W. Dankner
JAY W. DANKNER was born, raised and educated in Brooklyn, New York. After graduation from law school in 1973, he joined the firm of the legendary, Harry H, Lipsig, under whose tutelage he learned the intricacies of civil litigation and trials. He tried and won his first case against General Motors in a case involving a design defect within weeks after his admission. Thereafter, he focused his attention on the emerging and developing field of law known as products liability litigation.
Categories
Recent Post
Case Results
$10,000,000
Sexual assault of a child at a summer baseball camp
$8,300,000
Delay in treatment of peripheral vascular disease in a 52 year old woman resulting in loss of lower limb
