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$4.5 Million Settlement In Case Concerning Delay In Childbirth After Placental Abruption
The physician continues to be accountable for supervising the nurses and staff. Further, the nurses and staff are responsible for having the knowledge, training and experience to recognise signs of difficulties and for telling the physician if they do arise. The fact is, though, that nurses and staff in some cases fail to satisfy these requirements. Consider the published lawsuit regarding a pregnant woman at full term started going through contractions while at home. On the way the local hospital the woman also started having nonstop extreme pain. Upon reaching the hospital she told the nurse that she was having severe pain and that she believed something was wrong. Unfortunately the nurse either failed to understand or ignored her complaints and did not get in touch with the obstetrician, who had not yet arrived at the hospital, to inform him. Instead the nurse acted as though this was a typical pregnancy. Valuable time passed before she even started following the fetal heart rate. Once she finally did recognize that the unborn baby was in fetal distress. At this time she did notify the obstetrician, who still was not in the hospital, by telephone. Another doctor on the unit took charge and did an emergency C-section. The severe pain was because of a placental abruption which led the unborn child to experience a lack of oxygen leading to serious brain injury. The infant is permanently disabled and requires full time attention. The law firm that represented the family published that the case settled for from the hospital for the nursing not spotting that the pregnant woman had experienced a placental abruption. In this lawsuit the patient basically alerted the nurse of her sensation that a complication had developed in the pregnancy. At this stage in the pregnancy severe continual abdominal pain can be the result of a placental abruption. It is not known why the nurse failed to put these together. If she disregarded the patient’s complaints, failed to hear them, failed to have the necessary knowledge, training or experience to correctly interpret the situation, or discounted her complaints on the grounds that a placental abruption is commonly (though not every time) accompanied by observable vaginal bleeding, she missed signs of a serious problem. The result, unfortunately, was a serious injury to the unborn child resulting in a lifelong disability. Because of the harm caused by the nurse’s error the law firm that handled this matter reported that it managed to accomplish a settlement designed to be enough so that the child has appropriate care for life. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting birth injury medical malpractice cases. You can learn more about different birth injury matters including those having to do with placental abruption, group b streptococcus and erbs palsy matters by visiting the website |
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