Any patient would be horrified to learn their doctor operated on the wrong part of their body. They had to go through the expense, inconvenience, pain, and risk of surgery, only to find the doctor did not perform the correct procedure. To make matters much worse, a healthy body part may have been removed.
If your surgeon operated on the wrong site, contact a medical malpractice attorney at D’Amico & Pettinicchi, LLC, immediately. We have been representing patients in cases involving wrong-site surgery malpractice in Connecticut for years and have a well-deserved reputation for success. We can help you hold the surgeon and the facility liable for the horrible mistake they committed.
It may seem crass, but efficiency is the key to a profitable surgical department. Most surgeons and their teams perform multiple surgeries within a few hours. Patients and their medical records are shunted in and out of the surgical suite as quickly as possible. It should not be surprising that fundamental mistakes occur.
Sometimes, a surgeon operates on the wrong body part because they have someone else’s medical record before them in the operating suite. They perform the operation that the other person was supposed to receive. In other cases, the surgeon performs the correct operation on the right person but on the wrong side of the body.
Although surgeons are responsible for their actions, hospitals also have an obligation to prevent this occurrence. Many hospitals in Connecticut have established procedures with several redundancies to ensure that wrong-site surgeries do not occur. However, regardless of the processes in place and whether the surgical team followed them, the fact that a doctor operated on the wrong site is evidence of medical malpractice.
When you experience wrong-site surgery, you will need follow-up medical treatment for the unnecessary surgery. You will also have to schedule another surgical date to have the procedure you actually needed in the first place. You will incur additional surgical risk, medical costs, incidental expenses, and lost time at work for both surgeries.
Depending on the type of surgery, your quality of life might be severely affected. You may be in pain, not well enough to work, and unable to participate in activities you once enjoyed. Your mental health is likely to be affected by the stress of the surgeon’s mistake and needing two procedures. In the worst-case scenario, a wrong-site surgery could shorten your lifespan.
Our attorneys at D’Amico & Pettinicchi, LLC, can help you document the economic and non-economic losses you suffered because of the surgeon’s error. You are entitled to pursue the doctor and the hospital for financial damages to compensate for all your losses.
Wrong-site surgeries are considered “never events” by the organizations that regulate the quality of care in Connecticut hospitals. A never event is an occurrence that should never happen and would never happen when the facility adheres to reasonable safety standards.
Because a wrong-site surgery is a never event, proving that malpractice occurred is less complicated than other medical errors. A doctor or hospital commits malpractice when they do not meet the reasonable standard of care other doctors and hospitals in the area provide. By proving that a wrong-site surgery occurred, a malpractice lawyer from D’Amico & Pettinicchi, LLC, establishes that the surgeon and the facility did not meet a reasonable standard of care.
Connecticut General Statutes § 52-584 requires a patient to file a medical malpractice lawsuit within two years of the wrong-site surgery. Even though the merits of the lawsuit are obvious, a court will not hear a case if you file suit after the deadline.
You have the right to expect medical personnel to follow reasonable safety measures to ensure they perform the correct procedure on the right patient. When you suffer a wrong-site surgery, your surgical team clearly made a terrible mistake for which there is no legitimate excuse.
The lawyers at D’Amico & Pettinicchi, LLC, can help you pursue compensation for wrong-site surgery malpractice in Connecticut. Reach out today to schedule a free in-office or remote consultation. We have been helping victims of medical malpractice for decades, and we can help you. Get started today.
