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(516) 394-4200
Strokes can be fatal or cause long-term complications like paralysis, memory issues, pain, and changes in personality or behavior. If you or a loved one has suffered a stroke, these complications can lead to large medical bills and major changes in your daily life. When these outcomes could have been prevented with better medical care, a medical malpractice attorney can help you determine whether you have a case. Because stroke malpractice cases are complex, working with an experienced Bronx stroke medical malpractice lawyer is essential.
Doctors are not always able to treat strokes successfully, and this does not necessarily mean there was malpractice. To be liable for medical negligence, a doctor or other healthcare provider needs to fail to give a patient the proper standard of care. Establishing the standard of care can be complex, but it is based on what the average doctor in the same geographic area and medical specialty would provide. For example, an emergency doctor may be expected to stabilize the patient, but a neurologist would be held to a higher standard regarding stroke diagnosis and treatment.
When a person has a stroke caused by a blood clot, administering specific clot-busting drugs (such as tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA) within the first few hours can prevent death or serious damage to the brain. Failing to administer these medications quickly enough is a common opportunity for malpractice. If a hospital has the drugs available and a patient arrives at the emergency room with typical stroke symptoms, delaying treatment could be malpractice. If the patient only had rarer symptoms that the average provider would not recognize, there might not be any malpractice. A Bronx stroke malpractice attorney could help you determine if a stroke malpractice claim is possible.
The first step in the process is meeting with a Bronx lawyer, who will review the stroke malpractice case and begin preparing the claim. This will include gathering evidence, especially the stroke patient’s medical records, and meeting with healthcare providers who might be able to serve as expert witnesses. To ensure that the case is heard, the lawyer will need to file within the statute of limitations. In New York, this is generally two years and six months from the date the medical negligence occurred. In stroke cases, this start date is often the day when the patient went to the emergency room for treatment. The statute of limitations tends to be straightforward in stroke cases, but there are some situations when the timeline could be different from the standard two and a half years. For example, if the negligence occurred as part of ongoing treatment, the timeline might begin at the conclusion of that treatment.
One important piece of the case is the Certificate of Merit. New York Civil Practice Law & Rules § 3012-A requires anyone filing a medical malpractice lawsuit to either include this with the initial filing or submit it within 90 days of filing the lawsuit. This certificate establishes that the lawyer has discussed the case with a doctor and believes, based on the consultation, that there is a good reason for filing a malpractice suit.
Strokes can cause devastating damage, especially if they are not treated quickly and correctly. Medical malpractice cases are extremely complicated. If you believe that you or your loved one suffered from medical negligence due to stroke mismanagement, you need an experienced medical malpractice lawyer. Duffy & Duffy is here to help. Schedule a free consultation with our team today.
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