Who Can Be Held Accountable?

Many entities are legally responsible for your medical care during pregnancy, including your physician, his staff, the hospital or clinic where you receive care, the pharmacist who fills your prescriptions and the pharmacy in which he or she works, as well as the pharmaceutical company that produces the medicines you are prescribed. Any medical professional providing medical services to you or your baby are responsible for providing you with a standard level of care. A consultation with a birth injury lawyer at the Michigan office of Mayer Gordon will provide you with a clear picture of who might be responsible for the injuries sustained by your child.

 Hospital Negligence

Many individuals who are considering a birth injury or birth defect lawsuit overlook the responsibility of hospitals and hospital staff in preventing such tragedies. Hospitals are staffed with a large number of medical professionals, ranging from licensed physicians, physicians’ assistants, nurses, and nurse practitioners. Hospitals can be held directly responsible for their own negligence of care, as well as the negligence of their employees, through vicarious liability. This means that a hospital is not only responsible for it’s own actions, but also the actions and negligence of those in its employ.

Hospitals can be held accountable for negligence if they do not properly screen their personnel before hiring them or granting them privileges at the hospital. A strict process requires hospitals to make inquiries of the training and licensing of all medical practitioners it employs. If the hospital allows a physician whom it knew or should have known was incompetent to treat hospital patients, it can be held directly responsible through the Corporate Negligence doctrine. A skilled birth injury lawyer will be familiar with this term and be able to explain it to you fully.

Hospitals are also required to maintain a sufficient number of staff members to ensure a standard to patient care. If a patient suffers an injury because there are not enough registered nurses to provide quality care, it can be held accountable for the injury which resulted directly for insufficient nursing care. If you give birth in a hospital that is understaffed, and this results in an injury to your baby, your birth injury lawyer will be able to help you file a birth injury claim.

The attending physician gives specific instructions as to the care of each patient. If the hospital employees do not follow these orders, the hospital can be held accountable for the negligent care. The hospital can also be held accountable if the hospital staff allows an attending physician to order a treatment plan that is clearly faulty without making an inquiry regarding the treatment. These two responsibilities might seem at odds, but are both part of a code of conduct set in place to protect patients from human errors, and can be pursued by your birth injury attorney in a birth injury lawsuit against both the hospital and its employees.

Hospitals are required by law to protect patients from harm, perform accurate and adequate clinical tests, keep meticulous and ordered medical records, and admit and discharge patients with care. When faced with a severely ill or injured person, a hospital is generally required to admit him or her on an emergency basis, and can be held accountable if the failure to do so results in further injury or death. Hospitals are also required both by federal and state law to treat all patients equally, regardless of race, color, religion, education, or ability to pay for treatment.

Although not all hospital employees are highly paid physicians, the doctrine of Respondeat Superior helps to protect victims of medical malpractice by ensuring that a financially responsible entity will be able to compensate the victim for negligent acts committed by a medical staff member. If the medical staff member was acting in the scope of his or her employment duties when they commit the negligent act, the hospital may be held vicariously responsible.

Some physicians are considered independent contractors, and as such, the hospital cannot be held accountable for the malpractice committed by such a physician. However, the hospital may be held accountable for allowing an incompetent or unlicensed physician hospital privileges. Your birth injury lawyer will be able to uncover the status of the physician in question in a medical malpractice case, and hold all parties responsible for their actions. A hospital may also be held accountable both directly and indirectly for the actions of its contractors in emergency rooms and its outpatient facilities.

Pharmaceutical Companies

Companies that manufacture medicines and pharmaceuticals are held responsible for the medicines they produce. Pharmaceutical companies are required by law to disclose the possible dangers of their products use to physicians. Pharmaceutical companies can also be held directly responsible if a birth defect is caused when a pregnant woman takes their medication under the prescription of a licensed physician.

A Pharmaceutical company is responsible to the consumer to the extent that it must ensure the medication is reasonable safe when used as directed. They must also inform physicians of all risks associated with its use. This means that if these conditions have been met, the prescribing physician, not the pharmaceutical company, will be held accountable for the medications misuse or it’s prescription outside of intended use. The pharmaceutical companies must exercise due care in researching a drugs possible side effects before placing it on the market. If it fails to do this, the company can be held accountable for releasing an unreasonably dangerous product under liability laws.

The prescribing physician, through his or her medical knowledge and the assumption of his or her receipt of adequate information regarding a medicine and its side effects, is considered a learned intermediary when determining whether or not it is the correct choice of treatment for a patient. The physician can be held accountable for failure to correctly determine a course of treatment that is in the best interests of a patient. Disclosing the possible side effects and risks of a particular medication to a patient is the primary responsibility of the attending physician.

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