Nobody wants to visit the emergency room of a hospital, but when you or a loved one develops an urgent health problem, the emergency department is the first line of defense. Because of the often time-sensitive nature of emergency medicine, emergency room doctors and staff are afforded some additional leeway when it comes to diagnosing and treating patients who have serious medical conditions.
However, this recognition of the difficulty of practicing medicine in an emergency setting does not excuse negligence and medical malpractice, and doctors and other emergency room providers can still be held liable for any harm they cause as a result of sub-par medical care.
Not every patient that visits an emergency room is suffering from a life-threatening emergency. In fact, for those without insurance or a primary care physician, the emergency room can often be a substitute for a more typical family care practice. In these less emergent situations, the patients, who are likely uninsured, often find their complaints fall on deaf ears, which leads to poor outcomes as their condition worsens. When an emergency room fails to take a patient seriously, they can be held liable for their failure to adequately treat the patient.
Emergency room patients still enter into a doctor-patient relationship with the emergency room doctors, and are entitled to adequate medical care that meets the standard of care required by all health care professionals.
If you believe you or a loved one was the victim of a mistake, or were not treated adequately in the emergency room which led to a serious complication of a pre-existing issue, it is important that you reach out to an experienced medical malpractice law firm to see if you may be entitled to compensation from the emergency room or the health care professional.
The legal team at Melrose Law has more than 30 years of experience litigating medical malpractice lawsuits, including cases where emergency room staff made serious errors, leading to injury or death of their patients. Not every mistake in the emegency room is medical malpractice, since the law recognizes that emergency medicine is a very difficult field of medicine, but you will not know whether you have a case without talking to an experienced lawyer who can evaluate and investigate your claim. You should call Melrose Law at 800-222-2430 for a free case evaluation, and our lawyers will evaluate your claim and let you know if it is a claim that we can help you pursue. We do not collect legal fees unless we recover damages for you. We have two convenient North Carolina locations in Asheville (by appointment) and Waynesville.
