Cancer is a terrible disease. Treatment for cancer, often including surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy, can itself be hard on the patient. Treatment can be so toxic and so dangerous that those administering the treatment need to be very careful in prescribing and administering just the right dosage.: enough to treat the cancer but not enough to inflict permanent injury or even cause the death of the patient.
Tragically, whether from pure carelessness, communication problem or administrative error, the dosage prescribed or administered is incorrect. If the dosage is too low, the cancer may spread and kill the patient. If the dosage is too high, the treatment may itself seriously harm or even kill the patient. When this happens those responsible for the error may be liable for medical malpractice or for the wrongful death of the patient.
In one example of this type of situation, there was a recent reported case involving a female patient who received news that she had stage 3 endometrial cancer. Shortly thereafter she started undergoing radiation therapy for the cancer. The initial treatments progressed without any problems. Starting with the twelfth treatment, however, the radiation she received was at an overdose level of radiation. In fact, for the last seventeen sessions, she received a fifty percent overdose of radiation. This much radiation resulted in a perforation of her bowel. This, in turn, lead to a blood infection which ultimately took her life. Her last few months included horrific suffering.
The patient was survived by her husband of thirty-nine years and their 2 sons. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging medical malpractice - namely, the deadly overdose of radiation. Their lawyer reported that the case settled for $7.5 million.
The families of those diagnosed with cancer often suffer greatly. The worry and sadness that accompanies the diagnosis of a spouse, a child or a parent can be devastating. Family members often become the caregivers of their loved as they undergo treatment. And they put their trust and their faith in the doctors and other health care professionals in care of their loved one's treatment.
Add to that the horrible guilt and anguish that can come if they find out that the trust and the faith they placed in the doctors and other health care providers was broken. Most people who call an attorney do so because they want to prevent what happened to a loved one from happening to anyone else. A lawsuit and a settlement is little comfort except to place perhaps some small measure of closure on the loss by the process of going through it and to hopefully persuade doctors and other health care professionals to re-evaluate their procedures and put measures in place to keep future patients safe.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases. Learn more about how a cancer lawyer or a wrongful death attorney can help you by visiting his websites
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