Orlando Personal Injury Lawyer - Medical Malpractice - Most Commented

Medical Malpractice Reform: The True Numbers?

Ed Normand — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:00:00 GMT

A recent article in TIME magazine about malpractice reform, available at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1924501,00.html, caught my eye for several reasons. First, the article compares the varying levels of malpractice insurance costs for doctors throughout the nation. However, the article also contains incorrect facts about awards for noneconomic damages - money awarded for pain and suffering. Of note, the article, a Spotlight into Malpractice Reform, references that an obstetrician in Florida could pay five times as much as a colleague in Texas pays in malpractice insurance premiums. The reason behind this discrepancy? The author of the article blames it on the fact that "awards [for pain and suffering] are unlimited[]" in Florida, unlike Texas, where such damages are capped.

What the author of the article fails to realize is that this is wrong - awards in Florida for pain and suffering are capped. Beginning in 1988, the Florida legislature enacted NICA - the Neurological Injury Compensation Act, which was enacted as a way to compensate children who fit certain criteria. However, what the Act essentially did was limit the amount a child could recover from a doctor for a birth related neurological injury (most Ob/Gyn cases fall into this category), even if the doctor committed medical malpractice in the treatment of the child. Under NICA, a child gets $100,000 for a lifetime of pain and suffering. If the child dies, the death benefit is limited to $10,000, but if there is clear and convincing evidence of bad faith or malicious disregard of human rights, safety, or property, then a parent would not be prevented from suing the doctor. This is an almost impossible standard!

Florida has also placed a cap on medical malpractice awards in general, limiting noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering to $500,000 against medical practitioners such as doctors and nurses. For medical negligence that results in a permanent vegetative state or death, Florida has capped awards at $1,000,000. There are also separate caps related to hospitals and nonpractitioners. With respect to the medical negligence of nonpractitioners, Florida has capped noneconomic damages at $750,000 per patient, and where such negligence results in a permanent vegetative state or death, the maximum is set at $1,500,000. There are also separate caps in place for emergency services and care. For such services, recovery against medical practitioners are capped at $150,000 per patient, up to $300,000 recoverable by all patients from all such practitioners. Awards against nonpractitioner defendants providing emergency services is capped at $750,000 per claimant, up to $1,500,000 recoverable by all patients from all such practitioners. Florida statutes state these figures as the maximum amount a patient can receive, even if there are multiple negligent practitioners or nonpractitioners. For public health care providers, like the local county hospitals, there is also a more restrictive cap of $100,000 for all damages.

What needs to be the focus of health care in the United States is the reduction of costs. Part of the argument for capping malpractice awards has been the reduction of malpractice insurance premiums for doctors. Damages caps have been in place in Florida for quite some time, and malpractice insurance premiums have not been significantly reduced. Perhaps more attention should be focused on what else can be done to reduce costs, as the capping of malpractice awards is still not reducing health care costs in Florida and around the country. The real culprit is that there are bad doctors that commit multiple acts of malpractice but continue to practice. If the Department of Health and the doctors would police their own, rates would go down.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ed Normand

Medical Malpractice and Money

Ed Normand — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:00:00 GMT

The public perception that medical malpractice cases regularly result in large awards of money is an unrealistic one. Even if a plaintiff prevails at trial, there is no guarantee that any money will be forthcoming. A study from the Department of Justice, based on data from 43,000 cases, reveals that for seven states between 2000 and 2004 (Florida, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, and Texas), most medical malpractice cases that were decided for the plaintiff ended with no money going to the plaintiff.

For cases in which a plaintiff prevails and is awarded compensation, many states are now capping recovery at a maximum of $250,000. The amount an attorney can recover from that statutory maximum is now also restricted. In Florida, attorneys’ fees in such medical malpractice cases, unless agreed to otherwise, are limited to 30% of the first $250,000 (exclusive of reasonable and customary costs), and 10% of all damages in excess of $250,000 (exclusive of reasonable and customary costs). If an attorney seeks more than the statutory limit for fees, the attorney is regulated by the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar. The rules limit attorneys’ fees to 33 1/3% to 40% for any recovery up to $1 million; 30% for any recovery between $1 million and 2 million; or 20% of any portion of the recovery exceeding $2 million.

Average costs of preparing for a medical malpractice case can now average $50,000 to well over $100,000 and require years to prevail at trial. Plaintiffs are often left permanently disabled as a result of the incompetence or negligence of doctors and/or hospitals, and deserve to be adequately compensated for their suffering. By capping recovery in medical malpractice cases, states are not only affecting the compensation that plaintiffs receive, but also the opportunity for plaintiffs to get their day in court. Because preparation costs for medical malpractice cases are getting so high, bringing a case to trial presents a serious financial risk, as attorneys might not be able to recover their costs even with a monetary judgment. Statutory caps on medical malpractice verdicts for pain and suffering hurt those most deserving - mothers, children, and the elderly. Big wigs still get 100% compensation for the loss of earnings, so the corporate executive hurt by malpractice will still be compensated for all his lost earnings but the child and the mother won’t. Are children less worthy?

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ed Normand

Verdict Against Florida Amputee Thrown Out

Sandy Grinnell — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:08:47 GMT

A Broward County Circuit Judge has done something extremely rare - he has reversed a jury verdict and ordered a new trial. The victim in this case lost of four of her limbs due to medical negligence. Judge Charles M. Greene tossed a jury's verdict against the victim because it was "contrary to the law and the manifest weight of the evidence."

Judge Greene determined there was an overwhelming amount of evidence against the defendants (significant errors in communication and diagnoses) and therefore a new trial was warranted. The defendants blamed each other and there many, many errors, both of which may have contibuted to the jury not being able to determine who was actually at fault.

The victim had gone to the hospital in extreme pain and told the attending nurse she had a history kidney stones and that it must be a kidney stone. The ER physician and the attending physician pointed fingers at each other - one saying that he was not informed of the patient's dire condition, the other indicating she expected the attending to come in to examine the patient, not just make a decision over the phone.

As a result of the lack of communication and treatment, the victim ended up in septic shock due to an extreme infection that cut off the blood flow to her limbs. Unfortunately, her legs were amputated just below her knees and then a few days later, her arms were removed just below the elbow.

According to the National Center for State Courts, in 2005 judges set aside less than .5 percent of jury verdicts. This victim is one of the very few that will have a second day in court. One can only hope that aother jury will view the evidence the way Judge Greene did and help this amputee get what she is surely due - a fair settlement in the face of all the many errors that resulted in her being a quadruple amputee.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Sandy Grinnell

Protect Yourself From Bad Doctors

Ed Normand — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:03:00 GMT

Did you know...

While the new health care bill is being debated in Washington, there is something individuals can do right now to ensure that they are receiving the best possible care. Most of the doctor malpractice in the country is committed repeatedly by just a small percentage of physicians. The Florida Department of Health publishes public profiles for every licensed medical doctor, osteopathic doctor, chiropractor, podiatrist, and advanced registered nurse practitioner practicing in the state. Each profile contains self-reported information about the medical practitioner that may help in selecting a doctor, or finding out more about the health professional that is currently treating you. The website also lists whether the practitioner carries medical malpractice insurance, and whether they have been involved in any medical malpractice litigation. For the website, go to: Medical Malpractice .

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ed Normand

Hospital Errors Can Be Deadly

Sandy Grinnell — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:15:13 GMT

An MSN article today describes the excessive number of egregious errors made in hospitals resulting in death to the patient and the numbers are staggering. Approximately 1.5 million patients experience some type of avoidable error or condition each year while in the hospital, and 40,000 to 100,000 of them die - every year.

Did you know that there is a 20% chance that you will be given the wrong medication while you are in the hospital? What about the fact that doctors wash their hands only 61% of the time (it drops to 44% if they don't think anyone is watching)?

The underlying condition that contributes to these avoidable errors appears to be overcrowding in our hospitals. There aren't enough doctors and nurses on staff to handle the number of patients; patients are placed in beds on floors where the staff does't have sufficient training to treat them; and the systems to schedule surgeries are inadequate. According to Eugene Litvak, a researcher at Boston University,

The challenge is similar to preventing traffic jams. It's not so much that there aren't enough doctors and nurses, but that patients tend to show up all at once or not at all. And traffic spikes don't occur because of kids falling out of trees or sudden epidemics; it's that surgeons are allowed to schedule operations without regard for how many operating rooms will work at the same time. Badly scheduled admissions, says Litvak, "will screw up everything else that you build."

Apparently the best way to avoid some of these errors is to take charge of your own medical care. When hospital staff enters your room, make sure you see them wash their hands before they come to your bedside. Don't be afraid to ask the doctor what medications have been prescribed and confirm them with your nurse before you take them. If you're having surgery, such as a knee replacement or kidney removal, have a family member mark the your body with the words "Right"and "Wrong" where appropriate. If you don't, the result could be life threatening.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Sandy Grinnell

The Cost To Society of Rampant Medical Malpractice

Ed Normand — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:36:00 GMT

Every year there is a study called the Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study. The name speaks for itself. Sadly every year for the 5 years it has been in existence shows shocking amounts of medical negligence resulting in severe injury and death, in this, the supposedly best health system in the world. It does not make it the best just because it costs the most. You constantly hear political hacks and medical malpractice reform lobbyists whining about the cost of medical malpractice suits, well check out these facts about the costs from the medical malpractice itself:

"From 2004 through 2006, patient safety errors resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths of U.S. Medicare patients and cost the Medicare program $8.8 billion".

Now those are some serious costs to our nation and taxpayers. We need good medical malpractice lawyers to weed out the dangerous health care providers.

Now lawsuits do work to limit the malpractice. The bad apples out there that are killing all these patients need to be stopped. The medical boards are not doing it and so the Courts will have to. Eventually if a physician kills enough patients and gets sued so that there is a cost to it then the physician won't be able to get insurance to perform procedures that should not be done or should be done by another qualified physician. The good ones have nothing to worry about.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ed Normand

Sign Your Rights Away or Die

Ed Normand — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 23:38:00 GMT

Many health care providers are requiring patients to sign lengthy agreements absolving them from liability for malpractice as a condition of treatment. A typical scenario is a family needs to put a loved one in a nursing home. A family member visits the facility on behalf of the relative. They are given the sales pitch and tour by the sales staff; promises abound. Then they are given a stack of "standard admission documents" to sign. Within the stack are contracts the nursing home drafted to limit or take away the rights of the nursing home resident. Some of the agreements purport to limit liability, some try to take away the constitutional right to trial by jury, or both.

Now physicians are trying to get on the bandwagon and attempt to require patients to sign documents preventing them from being compensated even in cases of obvious medical malpractice. As recently noted in the Tampa Tribune:

The practice is a form of blackmail: Sign it or get out. Equality of bargaining position does not exist between a doctor and patient. There's no neutrality and no opportunity to negotiate the terms of the agreement. Mandatory arbitration may be appropriate in the context of a business relationship, but it is inappropriate in the context of health care decision-making.

What most people do not understand is that the vast majority of malpractice is committed by a small number of physicians. Usually these are greedy types who operate to make money not to help others. These are the business men in the white coats and, sadly, they are precisely the ones most likely to take advantage of patients and sneak limitations on liability into the patient agreements. Most physicians are responsible and smart. They are rarely sued numerous times and if they happen to make a medical error that hurts or kills someone they have purchased insurance to protect them and to help out the patient for the lifelong damages they caused. Sadly, however, malpractice insurers are now trying to get even the good doctors to force patients to sign these liability limits. In that event, the only one that is protected is the malpractice insurer. Of course, the patient must then resort to us taxpayers through social security, medicare or medicaid to pay for his future care and the malpractice insurer gets off scot free. By the way malpractice insurers have not reduced rates they charge physicians in return for patient liability waivers. To add insult to injury I recently represented a physician to protect him from his malpractice insurer. In that case the malpractice insurer snuck a clause in the malpractice insurance policy that tried to prevent the physician from suing the insurance company if the insurance company acted in bad faith toward the physician. Moral of the story: liability escape clauses only protect the unscrupulous and should be banned in medical care situations.Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ed Normand

Fla. Physicians, Plaintiffs Lawyers Battle Over Med-Mal Discovery

super super — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:56:16 GMT

A West Palm Beach, Fla., attorney has won a ruling declaring that the state Legislature's implementing law for last year's Patient Right to Know ballot initiative is unconstitutional because it fails to provide full public access to records on medical errors.

The ruling is at least the second recent Florida circuit court decision in favor of medical malpractice plaintiffs who want to use the new constitutional amendment to obtain previously confidential hospital records on medical errors and physician discipline.

Amendment 7 was passed overwhelmingly by voters last November, and the Legislature passed an implementing law this past spring.

Last month, Theodore Babbitt, a partner at Babbitt Johnson Osborne & LeClainche in West Palm Beach, won a bench ruling from Martin Circuit Judge Robert M. Makemson in a malpractice case that the implementing statute "has the effect of negating significant purposes in portions of the amendment, frustrates the will of the amendment, so I will therefore declare that statute unconstitutional."

Since the amendment and the implementing law were approved, plaintiff and defense lawyers have battled in circuit courts across Florida over discovery of sensitive hospital records on medical errors. The disclosure of such records could have a major impact on the outcome of malpractice litigation -- as well as on the ability of hospitals and their medical staffs to conduct physician peer review and monitor quality of care.

Plaintiff and defense attorneys say that circuit judges in South Florida and other parts of the state have issued disparate rulings on these discovery requests, with some holding that peer review records are discoverable and others saying they're not. Several cases are in the appellate process.

In July, 3rd Judicial Circuit Judge E. Vernon Douglas in Lake City ruled in a malpractice case that "the Legislature did not attempt to 'implement' Amendment 7. ... They attempted to abolish it."

The defendants have appealed Douglas' order declaring the statute unconstitutional and ordering them to turn over peer review records to the 1st District Court of Appeal. Douglas agreed to stay the order at least until the appellate court decides whether to hear the case.

Both plaintiff and defense camps agree that the issue will have to be resolved by the Florida Supreme Court or the Legislature.

"This is waiting for resolution at the appellate level," said Lincoln Connolly, of Rossman Baumberger Reboso & Spier in Miami who is representing several malpractice plaintiffs who are seeking hospital peer review records. "There have been a few trial court orders compelling production of records. But to my knowledge, no trial court has forced a hospital to turn over the records before it gets a chance to appeal."

"You have conflicting decisions not just in different circuits but even within the same circuit," said Vanessa Reynolds, a partner at Conrad & Scherer in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., whose firm represents hospitals. "Those issues ultimately will have to be resolved by the Supreme Court."

Bill Bell, general counsel for the Florida Hospital Association, said perhaps two-dozen judges around the state have upheld the implementing legislation, and that he expects the matter to end up in the Supreme Court within the next two years. "There are good public policy reasons" for barring the use of such material in medical malpractice litigation.

State Rep. David Simmons, R-Orlando, a lawyer who heads the House Judiciary Committee, said that if the Supreme Court ultimately strikes down the implementing law, he'll push to have the Legislature place a measure on the ballot to repeal Amendment 7.

But there may be another complicating factor. State Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, said the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 passed by Congress may trump both Amendment 7 and the state implementing legislation. The new law says that material generated by "patient safety organizations" is privileged and is not subject to discovery in federal or state court or administrative proceedings.

Congress "protected peer review and very clearly intended to pre-empt state statutes," Gelber said. "I think they'll have to look at the federal statute to see if it would force us to make changes."

EXEMPT FROM DISCOVERY

Amendment 7 landed on the ballot last year as a result of a battle between Florida physicians and plaintiffs lawyers. The Florida Medical Association, dissatisfied with the caps on noneconomic damages it won in 2003, decided to ask voters to place a drastic cap on contingency fees for plaintiff lawyers in malpractice cases.

The Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers launched a counterattack, which its leaders say was intended to force the doctors to drop their initiative. The academy proposed ballot initiatives to require public disclosure of medical errors and to permanently revoke the medical license of any doctor found to have committed malpractice three times.

Hospital, business and insurance groups tried unsuccessfully to convince the doctors to drop their initiative in exchange for getting the plaintiffs lawyers to drop their measures. All three amendments ended up passing overwhelmingly. Since then, there have been pitched fights in the courts and the Legislature over all three measures.

The language of Amendment 7 gives "patients the right to review, upon request, records of health care facilities' or providers' adverse medical incidents, including those which could cause injury or death." It said patients' identities should not be disclosed.

But the implementing law, SB 938, which was strongly pushed by the Florida Hospital Association, makes records, including hospital peer review records, exempt from public disclosure and, therefore, exempt from discovery in civil court cases.

Unlike the amendment, the statute sets relatively narrow limits on who may obtain hospital records on medical errors. It defines the patient who may obtain such records as "an individual who has sought, is seeking, is undergoing, or has undergone care or treatment in a health care facility or by a health care provider."

Plaintiffs Karen Beane and Gary Beane challenged that statute in their Martin Circuit Court malpractice suit.

The Beanes seek hospital records in their case against Dr. Robert Pare, Treasure Coast OB/GYN Associates and Martin Memorial Medical Center. They allege that Dr. Pare used an improper medication for the inducement of labor and delivery. As a result, the suit alleges, Karen Beane suffered a uterine rupture, was forced to undergo a complete abdominal hysterectomy and was left unable to bear children.

Judge Makemson said the implementing law for Amendment 7 violates the state constitution because it defies the will of the voters. A written order containing the judge's ruling has yet to be entered in the case.

Babbitt, who represents the Beanes, said the ruling makes clear that the Legislature caved to pressure from the medical and hospital lobbies when it passed the law this spring to implement Amendment 7.

In the 3rd Judicial Circuit malpractice case, Douglas consolidated three discovery cases against Lake City Medical Center, Pendrak Surgical Group, P.A., and Dr. Robert Pendrak. He ruled that the law implementing Amendment 7 is unconstitutional because the amendment clearly states that patients have the right to access any records made or received during the course of business by a health care facility or provider relating to any adverse medical incident.

The language of Amendment 7 states that "the phrase 'adverse medical incident' means medical negligence, intentional misconduct and any other act, neglect or default of a health care facility or health care provider that caused or could have caused injury to or death of a patient, including, but not limited to, those incidents that are required by state or federal law to be reported to ... or reviewed by any health care facility peer review, risk management, quality assurance, credentials, or similar committee, or any representative of any such committees."

SETTLEMENTS AND PEER REVIEW

Amendment 7 opens up a new area of attempted discovery. The disclosure of hospital records on medical errors undoubtedly would have a major impact of the outcome of malpractice litigation, both plaintiff and defense lawyers say.

Plaintiff lawyers are seeking to use the opportunity broadly. Among other things, they hope to pin down hospitals' corporate negligence in failing to crack down on doctors with chronic quality problems.

"If you find hospital records saying the doctor screwed up and that this is the fourth time he's done it, that would lead to early resolution of disputes," Connolly said. It would be hard for the hospital to deny liability when it had previously sanctioned the doctor, he noted.

In his cases, Connolly is filing independent actions under Amendment 7 -- outside the malpractice cases -- seeking to force hospitals to disclose medical error and peer review records. He said he's filing these independent actions to sidestep defense claims that the records are privileged.

"There's no question that the availability of material like this in a suit has a dramatic impact on the settlement dynamic," said June Hoffman, a shareholder at Fowler White Burnett in Miami, which represents health care providers.

But lawyers who represent hospitals argue that the most significant impact of having to disclose these sensitive hospital records is that it would jeopardize the traditional hospital peer review system.

Hospitals and doctors who participate in peer review long have been granted confidentiality to enable them to investigate possible medical errors and take corrective action against medical staff. Without that protection from disclosure and discovery in malpractice cases, hospital lawyers say, doctors simply won't participate.

That's already happening as a result of Amendment 7, Reynolds said. "Peer review protections came about so you gave doctors a chance to speak confidentially about peers who were not performing well," she said. "Now doctors are reluctant, if not absolutely loath, to participate. They feel they've been stripped of incentives and protections to participate."

She said doctors won't feel reassured until the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the implementing bill, which exempts peer review records from discovery.

But Sheldon Schlesinger, a prominent malpractice plaintiffs lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, scoffed at that argument, saying hospital peer review has proven to be a failure in protecting the public from bad medicine.

"There was an Iron Curtain hiding vital information that existed until [Amendment 7] passed," he said. "The hospitals want to maintain the same attitude they've always had -- see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

To Rep. Simmons, the battle over Amendment 7 illustrates the need to make it harder to amend the state constitution. "This is a uniquely bitter war between the doctors and the lawyers," Rep. Simmons said. "And we, the people of Florida, are their stomping grounds."

Now, both the doctors and the plaintiff lawyers probably feel "a lot of morning-after remorse," said Gelber, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor who sits on the House Judiciary Committee. "It was a food fight that should not have been fought in Florida's constitution."

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by super super

Unemployed and Uninsured

Ed Normand — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:41:17 GMT

So far in 2009, almost 300,000 Floridians have lost their health insurance, along with their jobs. The link between health coverage and the rise in unemployment is important, because nearly two-thirds of people under the age of 65 get health coverage through their employment, or the employment of a spouse. Florida ranks third in the nation, among working age-adults, in the number of people who have lost their health insurance since January 2009, behind only California and Texas.

Several options are available to those who become unemployed, including COBRA, where you pay to extend current health coverage, but oftentimes individuals do not have the necessary financial means. However, the current trend of citing tort reform as a means to reduce health insurance costs are misplaced. During a time when more and more individuals are needing to purchase insurance on their own, it might be easy for some to point the finger at the alleged “evil” of medical malpractice lawsuits. Much has been proposed about the potential reduction in insurance costs if awards in medical malpractice cases were capped, or eliminated altogether. What individuals don’t realize is that in actuality, little to no savings in premiums have resulted from current attempts at tort reform. In fact, insurance companies in Florida like Aetna, have stated that tort reform has produced little or no savings in insurance rates in Florida, due in part to lawsuits only making up a tiny fraction of the overall healthcare spending in the United States each year. Reducing costs needs to come from within the system, starting with reducing the myriad of preventable medical errors committed by the small percentage of bad apple physicians each year.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ed Normand

Making Your Hospital Visit Safer

Sandy Grinnell — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:55:04 GMT

Sometimes the first step to recovery is protecting yourself during your hospital visit. Medical and human error during standard daily care and medical procedures are very real dangers and patients sometimes must serve as their own advocate during their stay in the hospital. Many times, patients are faced with challenges and needs that the hospital staff is either not responding to, or simply not noticing, and find themselves too weak to gather up the energy to request assistance. The Institute of Medicine reported that hospitalized patients should expect at least one medical error a day. In any given year up to ninety thousand patients may die from medical errors. There are certain key steps that you should take before and during your stay in a hospital to ensure that you do not encounter these errors.

First, before your surgery or procedure, research the operation and the hospital’s history on performing such operations. Some hospitals perform certain operations more frequently than others, and patient outcomes are more favorable in hospitals that are more experienced in these procedures.

Second, never remain alone for your stay. Having a trusted friend or family member to watch over you and to keep track of what the doctors and nurses are doing may help in catching a possibly deadly mistake. Also, many patients in hospitals are too weak or unable to request certain services so having someone to help you request attention or care may ensure safety during your stay.

Next, always request that your doctor or nurse washes their hands before coming into contact with you or your belongings. Washing hands is critical for stopping the spread of diseases and infections, and asking your doctor or nurse to wash their hands will limit your contact with outside bacteria and viruses.

Finally, whenever you are administered medication or given any treatment, make sure it is noted on your chart and your caregiver checks your hospital wristband and medical records to double check on the safety of the treatment. Patient mix ups in hospitals are more common than one would imagine.

Although hospitals should be a place of healing and treatment, mistakes do occur. Human error is a problem that every industry faces, and when you are dealing with human lives, taking every possible precaution is vital for the health and safety of not only yourself, but those you love. If anyone you know has been hurt or injured due to hospital error, please seek representation immediately. Be in control of your own health.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Sandy Grinnell