Despite the life-changing outcomes, some medical negligence victims don’t seek compensation. It is mainly due to a lack of knowledge of the procedure to be followed. Also, many patients simply are not sure if medical negligence had occurred. People believe that errors just happen in a hospital in their normal course of treatment, so no one is really responsible for that. Other victims wait too long, and eventually, the time to file a case expires.

Some common types of Medical Negligence are as follows:

 

1. Misdiagnosis: The first step after admitting the patient is the diagnosis.  The wrong diagnosis can prove to be fatal since it may delay the correct medical treatment, and that might directly affect the health of the patient. Or in other cases, a healthy patient shall receive a treatment that he doesn’t need. In order to defend the doctors from frivolous lawsuits, the Supreme Court held that not all wrong diagnosis shall amount to medical negligence. To prove negligence, it is imperative to show that the doctor failed to do something that other doctors with similar skills could have done.

 

2. Delayed Diagnosis/Failure to Treat: If a diagnosis is not made on time, it may, under extreme circumstances, lead to the death of the patient. In India, the primary reason for the delay in diagnosis or the failure to treat is the increasing distance in the ratio of doctor-patient. The doctor is always running to the next patient and sometimes is unable to tend all of them. Sometimes doctors put money above the patients. Since the delay in diagnosis reduces the likelihood of the patient’s recovery, the doctors and the hospital can be liable for medical negligence unless it is proved that due care was given an early diagnosis would not have affected the health of the patient.

 

3. Surgical Negligence: This negligence relates to negligence during the surgical treatment of the patient. Often, these surgeries would result in another surgery, infection, organ damage, or even death of the patient.

 

 

4. Childbirth Trauma: Childbirth, if not handled properly by the doctors can put the child through a life-threatening situation. Instances of issues that can be faced by the child at birth are as follows: