- A doctor or health professional does something wrong;
- It is something another reasonable doctor or health professional, in the same position, would not have done; and
- This causes you an extra injury over what you had first had treatment for.
It is not just doctors who may be sued for negligence. Dentists, nurses, optometrists, physiotherapists, psychologists and any other health professional may be sued for negligent treatment which causes you an injury.
For a more detailed explanation, please see our What is medical negligence? article.
A hospital and its staff may be negligent when they fail to implement strategies aimed at reducing a risk of harm to a patient. This may include:
- Not performing surgery competently;
- Administering the wrong medication or the incorrect dose;
- Birthing complications not adequately managed; or
- Failing to escalate care when a patient’s condition is deteriorating.
For more information on hospital negligence see our articles:
A medical misdiagnosis occurs when the doctor fails to diagnose the correct condition. This may occur because the doctor has failed to competently conduct an assessment or misinterprets the results. This failure may then lead to incorrect treatment being prescribed or not treatment at all.
Examples of misdiagnoses include failures to diagnose:
- Cancers
- Infections
- Birth and pregnancy complications
- Medication side effects
For more information see our article Medical Misdiagnoses.
Medical negligence claims involving medications are different to claims involving single treatments such as surgery. A surgical procedure is a one-off event involving separate components such as pre-surgery advice, warnings and tests, and then performance of the surgery. Medications are different.
For anyone considering whether they have a medical negligence claim as a result of a medication error, here are some key points:
- A doctor owes their patient a duty of care when giving advice about medications and when prescribing the correct medication.
- A doctor must review how you respond to a medication and monitor you for side effects.
- A doctor must warn about side effects which a reasonable patient would find significant, OR risks which because of your individual circumstances a reasonable doctor would think that you would find significant.
- Medical negligence claims can be about a failure to warn about a side effect which then occurs or because a medication was incorrectly prescribed.
For more information see our article Medications and Medical Negligence.
The types of compensation that may be awarded are:
- Previous lost wages for your time off work;
- If your injuries will affect your ability to work in the future, then your future lost wages;
- The cost of treatment, medications, disability aids and pain relief in the past and future;
- Care and assistance provided to you by family and friends;
- Pain and suffering; and
- Loss of enjoyment of life.
We provide tailored solutions to legal fees. This includes no charge up front for services, staged or progressive payments or payment at the end of the matter. We are happy to provide more details on fees, however as each case is different, we provide estimates directly to you so that it is relevant to your individual claim. Our extensive knowledge in health and medical law minimises time required to discover the best avenue to approach your matter, research, and contact the best specialists to gain an expert opinion in your matter. This reduces the legal costs whilst providing you with the best outcome.
We offer no win/no fee arrangements on a wide range of matters. You will have to pay for things like expert evidence and court fees, but will cost you nothing to speak to our health law team about what has happened to you. In our experience, the costs of doing nothing, long term, outweigh your legal costs. Further, if you are successful, generally the other party will pay most of your legal fees.
In June 2018, the ACT Legislative Assembly heard evidence from the ACT Government’s insurer that over the next few years,
medical negligence claims were expected to rise from 89 to 109. This is only for ACT Health claims, and so does not include claims against private hospitals. This equates to almost 2 per week, meaning there are many people in our region who have been impacted by negligent treatment.
Medical negligence is not just another type of personal injury. Just as you would see a specialist for complex health conditions, you should see a specialist for a medical negligence claim.
For Canberra, Queanbeyan and South East NSW, we are your health and medical law firm specialising in medical negligence claims. We are different from other law firms because we have:
- Inside knowledge about the health industry;
- University acquired knowledge about injuries and disease; and
- An understanding of how healthcare should be provided;
Matt Bridger and Tom Maling represent clients in medical negligence claims other health and medical law claims.
Matt is an Accredited Specialist in Personal Injury Law and has over 25 years of experience representing people in medical negligence matters, including small claims right up to multimillion dollar catastrophic injury claims. He has great medical knowledge across a whole range of areas and has conducted cases in general surgical, birth and obstetrics, dental, orthopaedics, pharmacological and cardiology negligence.
Tom completed training as a Registered Nurse and has experience in hospitals and nursing homes. He has health law expertise, running medical negligence claims involving surgery, medication errors, misdiagnoses and pregnancy mismanagement. Tom also advises on nursing home mistreatment and abuse. He has drafted extensive submissions to the ACT Government on euthanasia laws.
We have a proud history of success for clients in the Canberra, Queanbeyan, Bega, Cooma, Batemans Bay, Merimbula and other South-Eastern NSW areas. We were even the only ACT law firm to provide submissions to the ACT Select Committee of End of Life Choices.
