|
|
|
Medical Negligence Definition
Introduction to Medical Negligence Definition
In this day and age people are offered an amazing array of choices regarding different medical treatment methods available to them. Some diseases which could not be cured before can now be successfully treated. Some diseases for which there still is no cure can be controlled, thus helping people to lead their life as normally as possible. Therefore, it can be said that medicine has made quite a progress in the past few decades with a unique aim to help people stay healthy and live long lives. Despite all the things mentioned above, there are some things people ought to pay attention to, the most important of which is medical negligence.
What is Medical Negligence – a Definition
Truth being said, people put all of their trust in medical workers as these are the people who are supposed to be professional, fully skilled and experienced. Unfortunately, there are some cases where health care providers fail to their job properly and cause problems to patients. This is the definition of medical negligence in simple words – the failure of health care providers to provide an appropriate level of care to patients. When this happens, the patient has the right to file a medical negligence claim and get financial compensation for his or her problems or injuries caused by the mistake made by the health care provider in question.
The Elements of Every Medical Negligence Claim
Even though there are many different types of medical negligence claims, all of these types have some basic elements in common. Namely, if all of these four elements are not established, there are basically no grounds for a medical negligence claim to be filed. Patients who suspect medical negligence should contact a solicitor to make sure that there are legal grounds for filing a law suit against the health care provider.
Here are the four basic elements of a medical negligence claim:
- Legal duty of the health care provider – every health care provider has the legal duty to do his or her job in an appropriate way, and this element is the only element that every medical negligence claim has, regardless of what happened.
- Breached legal duty – this is where all medical negligence claims start. If and when a health care provider breaches his or her legal duty to provide medical treatment, a patient has the right to do something about it.
- The breach of the legal duty causes a problem for the patient – if this breach of legal duty causes a real problem for the patient in question then the medical negligence claim becomes serious. The more serious the problem, the more serious the medical negligence claim is.
- Damages – this is the main element of any medical negligence claim. Namely, if the breach of the legal duty does not cause any damages to the patients then there are no grounds for the claim to be filed. This is true regardless of the whether the health care provider has been negligent.
↑ Top
|
|