If you or a loved one needs to receive psychiatric treatment at a hospital, you expect to receive the accepted standard of care. However, that is not always what occurs. Medical malpractice can happen to a patient who is placed on a psychiatric hold, potentially resulting in all manner of injuries.
If you or a loved one has suffered losses or has been injured in these types of accidents, it’s vital that you consider filing a claim against the liable parties. It’s not always clear, however, who these could be, especially if the incident occurred in a hospital. Medical malpractice attorneys can guide you through this process.
What Is Medical Malpractice?
To understand whether you can hold another party liable, it’s first essential to know what medical malpractice is. This is a type of claim that requires proving that a medical professional did not provide the expected or acceptable standard of care. If another provider would not have made the same error that led to your losses or injury, then you could be entitled to file a claim.
Types of Medical Malpractice Common in Psychiatric Facilities
Just as in other types of medical facilities, malpractice can occur in psychiatric hospitals. One of the most common examples of psychiatric malpractice in these settings is medication errors. If you’re given the wrong medications or wrong doses, you can suffer serious side effects. You may also not receive the appropriate treatment for the condition that you have, allowing it to get worse. Receiving the wrong or delayed diagnosis is also medical malpractice. You could be misdiagnosed with a psychiatric condition you don’t have and receive treatment that you don’t need.
Negligence could also be present in the care you receive if you are forced to stay at the facility for long-term treatment. Understaffing and other similar issues could make it difficult for nurses to keep up with what patients need, putting you or a loved one at risk of everything from malnutrition to pressure ulcers.
In psychiatric hospitals, another serious issue that leads to many medical malpractice cases is the failure to prevent harm. Providers must adequately assess and monitor each psychiatric patient’s risk of harming themselves or others. If they don’t, then they have provided substandard care. This responsibility includes:
- Conducting timely risk assessments
- Responding to changes in a patient’s mental state
- Implementing appropriate supervision or safety measures based on known warning signs
Understanding Liability In Psychiatric Hospital Claims
If you or a loved one suffered an injury in a medical facility like a psychiatric hospital, or after you’ve been placed on a 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold, it’s not always easy to understand which parties you may hold responsible for your losses. The provider whose conduct resulted in your losses is the first person you can file against, but can the hospital be responsible, too?
The answer will depend on whether the negligent party is an employee or not. If they are, then the hospital can be responsible via vicarious liability. In some instances, however, the other party may work as an independent contractor. That is often the case when it comes to doctors.
The hospital could still be responsible even if the negligent party was not an employee if you can demonstrate negligence on the facility’s part. For example, if they brought in people without the appropriate training, or if they didn’t check for criminal records as thoroughly as they should have, they could be responsible for your losses.
Damages Available in a Psychiatric Malpractice Case
You may be entitled to receive economic and non-economic damages in one of these cases. Economic damages address the tangible losses that you or your loved one experienced. These include medical expenses, including hospital stays, medication costs, therapy bills, and a variety of other expenses.
These damages cover lost wages, too. If you were not able to work while you recovered from the injuries you sustained because of medical negligence, or if you will not be able to work in the future because of the incident, you deserve to be compensated for this missed income.
Non-economic damages address losses that are not as easy to calculate because they don’t have clear price tags. These include pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.
Obtaining Compensation With Help From Medical Malpractice Attorneys
When you turn to medical providers for any type of care, you deserve to receive the standard and expected treatment. If you don’t and you sustain an injury, it may be possible to begin a personal injury claim to recover your losses. To have the best chance to accomplish this, you need assistance from attorneys who are well versed in medical malpractice claims.
At The Trial Law Offices of Bradley I. Kramer, M.D., Esq., our team has decades of experience handling medical malpractice cases and we can guide you as you pursue compensation. You should not have to go through the aftermath of malpractice on your own. Contact us anytime for a free, no-obligation consultation.