Woman Sues Hospital For Husband’s Death, Own Injuries
Posted in Medical Malpractice,Our Blog,Wrongful death on October 25, 2013
A Louisiana woman whose husband died suddenly is seeking financial compensation through a wrongful deathlawsuit against his physicians. The woman, from New Orleans, alleges that she developed a heart condition because of her husband’s unexpected passing. Defendants named in the suit include the man’s personal physicians, along with East Jefferson General Hospital and several other local groups.
The main defendant in the case, an emergency care physician, is facing allegations of medical malpractice after failing to correctly diagnose the man’s condition. The suit alleges that this doctor did not recognize that the man had a low density mass on his liver; this failure violated generally accepted medical practice and standards of care.
Official reports show that the victim was transported to the East Jefferson emergency room in May 2010 after he began experiencing severe abdominal pain and some abdominal distention. A CT scan showed that the man had an abdominal wall hernia, along with a mass on his liver. Sadly, that liver lesion was never correctly identified, even by the man’s subsequent physicians, including general surgeons and other experts. The liver mass was only formally identified by an oncologist after the man again visited the emergency room in December 2010 complaining of diarrhea, severe pain and unexplained weight loss.
In all, several doctors are accused of medical malpractice because they did not carefully review the results of the man’s medical scans. East Jefferson Hospital itself is under fire because it was experiencing electrical problems on the day of the man’s first visit, which may have prevented doctors from communicating about the man’s condition.
The woman is seeking unspecified damages for her own injuries – she developed a ventricular apical ballooning of her heart after the man’s death – and the death of her husband. The woman’s condition is commonly seen in post-menopausal women after a traumatic event such as the death of a spouse. In such cases, victims can be eligible for financial compensation because of their pain and suffering, but they can also receive money for their own medical conditions.
Source: louisianarecord.com, “Wife sues hospital for heart condition she developed after the sudden death of her husband” Holland Phillips, Oct. 12, 2013