Malpractice Lawsuits take Time and Money to Wend Through the Court System
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Victims of malpractice are often anxious to receive compensation for their damages, and certainly that is an understandable emotion and expectation. The truth is that it’s good to practice patience when involved in any court proceeding, as the wheels of justice sometimes turn slowly.
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The Star-News Online recently reported on factors that affect malpractice cases in North Carolina:
By Mike Voorheis – A needle broken during prostate surgery. Incompatible blood types used during a transplant operation. A surgical towel left inside a body after surgery.
Mistakes happen and, eventually, doctors pay. But the process takes too long, some lawyers say.
Since 2008, more than 1,250 malpractice cases involving doctors now practicing in North Carolina have been settled out of court for at least $75,000 each. The average time span from date of incident to settlement in those cases was more than 50 months.
In 106 cases, plaintiffs received malpractice judgments against doctors practicing in North Carolina. Those cases took, on average, about 60 months to adjudicate.
Sometimes patients spend five or six years trying to collect money to repay medical bills, to replace lost income and to modify their homes to accommodate their new limitations. The N.C. Medical Board’s records show that Donna Ball’s case took 70 months from incident to settlement. And New Hanover County court records show that 36 months elapsed between the first court action and the last.
Ball, a Pender County newlywed and a nursing student, had her legs amputated below the knee and lost the fingers on her left hand to sepsis in March 2008. Twice, Ball was sent home from the emergency department at New Hanover Regional Medical Center.
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