Nursing staff who fail to exercise a reasonable degree of care when handling patients in Pennsylvania may be held financially responsible for injuries or deaths that occur as a result. One woman in a different state said one nurse's carelessness led to her mom's death. As a result, she has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit.
According to the suit, the woman's mom was admitted to the hospital, where she had to undergo a diagnostic laparotomy and was found to have ovarian cancer. The patient reportedly buzzed for one of the nurses to help her to go to the restroom. That is when a nurse went into the room to help her. The patient's daughter said the nurse who went in to help the patient had just started working again after having suffered an injury. Although she was wearing a boot on one foot, she tried to help the patient without additional help.
All of a sudden, the nursing professional dropped the patient and ended up falling on her as well. This caused the patient to suffer a fracture to her hip. The daughter of the patient said the hospital staff breached the appropriate standard of care, and this caused her mother's injury. Per the woman's daughter, the injury led to a delay in her ovarian cancer treatment, which caused her prognosis to drop from an over 50 percent chance of survival past five years to surviving no more than six months. The woman ended up dying.
The deceased patient's daughter, in her medical malpractice suit, is seeking both punitive and compensatory damages. If medical professionals in Pennsylvania are discovered to have been negligent in addressing or treating a patient and the patient is injured or dies, the injured patient or the surviving loved ones of the deceased patient have the right to seek justice through the civil court system. A monetary award may help to address pain and suffering caused by the incident and bring closure to the case.