Joliet’s largest hospital, Ascension St. Joseph, discharges 14,290 patients per year for a total of 72,670 patient days [1], but not everyone receives top-notch care during their stay here, or at the numerous medical facilities throughout the city.
If you have been injured due to negligence on the part of a medical professional, Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers is here to help.
Most Common Types of Medical Negligence
When a medical professional fails to provide competent treatment, this is considered medical malpractice. These medical errors can result in serious injury or even death, which is why it’s important to have an experienced attorney on your side.
We’ll ensure medical professionals are held legally responsible for these failures, which may include the following.
Nursing Home Abuse
Senior citizens who need round-the-clock medical care deserve to be treated with dignity and have their issues taken seriously. Unfortunately, though, the nursing home industry is rife with abuse. In fact, the World Health Organization found that 64.2% of nursing home staff admitted to perpetrating some form of abuse on patients within the last year [2], and this includes Joliet.
Of the 10 nursing homes and senior living facilities near Joliet, Illinois, 5 have a rating of ‘poor’ or ‘worse than average,’ and one is being actively investigated by Medicare for its low-quality care [3].
Nursing home abuse can include delaying treatment, distributing the wrong medication, or even physically assaulting patients. Emotional abuse and financial abuse are often common issues within nursing homes. Residents may suffer from broken bones, bruising, emotional distress, and a worsening of their underlying conditions due to medical neglect.
Our Joliet nursing home abuse lawyers will hold medical professionals accountable for failing to protect the dignity and well-being of the seniors under their care.
Birth Injuries
The Illinois birth rate is approximately 10.1 births per 1,000 people [4]. Given Joliet’s population of 150,033 people [5], there were about 1,516 babies born in the city last year. Unfortunately, not all of these births go smoothly due to medical malpractice.
Common injuries include fractures, head trauma, and nerve damage. A Joliet medical malpractice lawyer from our legal team can help you get justice on behalf of your injured newborn, ensuring you recover compensation to help your baby heal.
Health Professional Error
A healthcare provider may make a variety of medical errors negatively impacting a patient’s well-being. Anesthesia errors, emergency room errors, or delayed diagnosis can all result in serious pain and suffering for a victim, not to mention additional medical expenses to correct the mistake.
Sadly, there may even be issues during serious procedures like surgeries. Some of the most common surgical errors include operating on the wrong site and leaving foreign objects inside the patient, both of which can cause major injury to the patient.
In many cases, medical malpractice may occur due to understaffing. This is such a serious issue in Joliet hospitals that 500 nurses and other healthcare providers have gone on strike three times in the last year [6], protesting how hospital administration places patients in harm’s way through understaffing and poor facility maintenance.
Other common issues include overscheduling staff, leading to errors due to fatigue.
How a Joliet Medical Malpractice Attorney Can Help
At Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, we’re committed to helping victims recoup their losses in medical practice cases, ensuring doctors and other medical professionals are held accountable for their errors in judgment. Our Joliet personal injury attorneys will review medical records to identify medical malpractice and consult with experts to provide their professional opinions on whether a healthcare provider’s negligence contributed to poor outcomes. .
This is critical because a doctor may have provided the same care in the same circumstances, but one patient recovered and the other did not. It’s important to have experts on your side during medical malpractice cases in order to prove there were errors in judgment that contributed to the damage.
Additionally, we will negotiate with the medical professional’s insurance company on your behalf and, when necessary, represent you in court during a medical malpractice lawsuit. Our law office has a powerful track record of holding hospital systems accountable and securing compensation through evidence-based arguments proving malpractice.
Can I Afford a Joliet Medical Malpractice Lawyer?
Our Joliet medical malpractice attorneys work on a contingency fee basis, meaning you will not owe us anything unless we are able to recover damages for you. A medical malpractice case is stressful enough without worrying about bills. We deduct our legal fees from your settlement so you can focus entirely on your recovery.
Common Medical Malpractice Injuries
Medical malpractice encompasses a wide range of circumstances, with some being more common than others. Common conditions resulting from malpractice include:
- Overdoses
- Infections due to neglect
- Permanent disability
- Broken bones
- Head trauma
- Spinal cord trauma
- Worsening conditions due to misdiagnosis
- Scarring
- Disfigurement due to surgical errors
Sadly, some cases result in the death of the patient. If you have lost a loved one due to medical malpractice, contact a Joliet wrongful death attorney from our team to get justice for your loss.
How Long Do I Have to File a Medical Malpractice Claim in Joliet, IL?
In general, the Illinois statute of limitations provides 2 years from the date of the incident for medical malpractice claims. However, if the condition does not emerge until later, such as a device that failed before its expected life cycle, you may have up to 4 years to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Can I File a Medical Malpractice Claim After Signing a Consent Form?
You can file medical malpractice claims even after signing a consent form. Consent for a medical procedure does not protect a doctor from a lawsuit if negligence caused an injury, or if they failed to inform you of the risks of the procedure before beginning treatment.
Times in which you can file a claim include an egregious error in judgment on the part of the doctor, medication errors, or deviation from the expected course of treatment. A Joliet medical malpractice lawyer can also file suit if the consent form is found to be invalid due to the patient being in an altered state or mentally incompetent at the time of signing.
Damages Our Joliet Medical Malpractice Lawyers Can Help You Recover
Medical malpractice damages can include both economic damages and non-economic damages.
An economic damage is one that can be proven through documentation, such as:
- Lost wages
- Medical expenses
- Out-of-pocket expenses like assistive technology
- Loss of future earning potential
- Future medical needs
- Funeral expenses in the case of wrongful death
A non-economic damage is one that does not necessarily have a specific financial sum, such as:
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Loss of companionship
In personal injury cases, the judge may also award punitive damages for willful disregard for human life.
Is There a Maximum Limit on Compensation?
As of 2024, there is no settlement cap for medical malpractice cases; the settlement cap was abolished in 2010. A Joliet medical malpractice lawyer will seek maximum compensation from a doctor, insurance company, or hospital, which can sometimes be in the millions.
Who Can Be Held Liable in Medical Malpractice Claims?
Our Joliet personal injury attorneys can hold a variety of individuals and organizations liable based on the specifics of the medical malpractice case. Some potential defendants include:
- Doctors
- Nursing staff
- Dentists
- Optometrists
- Pharmacists
- Therapists
- Technicians
- Anesthesiologists
- Hospital systems
- Pharmaceutical manufacturers
- Medical device manufacturers
Proving a Medical Malpractice Case in Joliet, Il
Proving medical malpractice requires establishing several criteria that are common to all personal injury cases: duty of care, breach of duty, causation, and damages. However, there are slightly different parameters for these in a medical malpractice case, which are as follows.
- Duty of Care: The physician or medical professional must have had a relationship with the patient at the time of the injury, either by being a direct overseer of their care or by being responsible for those providing care.
- Breach of Duty: The healthcare professional committed medical negligence by failing to adhere to standards of care outlined by their particular specialty, thus creating a breach of duty. As the standards for doctors and nurses vary by their specialty, medical malpractice lawyers must prove their actions deviated from the typical expectations of their field.
- Causation: The injury suffered by the plaintiff was directly caused by this breach of duty. This may be easy to prove, such as the case of a foreign object left in a patient because of a surgical error, but at other times, it’s harder to show causation. A skilled Joliet, IL, medical malpractice attorney will be able to prove the injury is related to a botched procedure.
- Damages: The patient suffered damages as a result of medical malpractice, whether that is unusual pain or lost wages due to extended recovery time.
Contact Our Medical Malpractice Attorneys Today!
Medical professionals are obligated to heal, not harm, their patients. Those who have suffered due to the negligent actions of a Joliet, IL, healthcare worker deserve compensation for their pain, and our medical malpractice attorneys can help.
Contact us today at (888) 424-5757 or contact us online for a free consultation to discuss your medical malpractice case with a lawyer. You owe us nothing unless we are able to earn you compensation for your injury, ensuring you can focus on healing from medical malpractice rather than worrying about additional bills.
Resources: [1] American Hospital Directory, [2] World Health Organization, [3] US News and World Report, [4] Knoema, [5] US Census Bureau, [6] ABC-7
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