While you’re in childbirth, you have this lovely, ideal image in your mind as to how, at the end of this arduous process, you’ll have a little, happy child cradled in your arms. Despite medical and technological progress, events may not go as anticipated, and medical errors can and do occur during delivery.
Filing a Birth Injury Claim
A birth injury claim is a legal action that allows parents or legal guardians to seek justice and financial compensation for a child who has been injured as a result of medical errors. If you believe that you or your child was injured due to negligence during childbirth, a lawsuit may provide you with some sense of justice.
Doctors, nurses, and other medical staff may be held liable for a mother’s or child’s injuries if they fail to act effectively to a condition that occurs during birth or provide inadequate prenatal care.
An experienced birth injury lawyer can guide you and help you sue for a birth injury, which can potentially provide your family with the money you’ll have to give your child the best care possible. The following are some of the reasons you should sue for a birth injury settlement.
1. Medical Expenses
Medical expenses include past and future costs for doctor and hospital visits, surgeries, and ongoing care. Due to life-altering impairments, the child may require medical care, scans and lab testing, physiotherapy, and prescriptions throughout their life. During a birth injury claim, your legal team can map out the projected costs of your child’s care through what’s called a life care plan.
Care costs for severe birth injuries can drive families into bankruptcy. For example, health care costs for children with cerebral palsy were 10-26 times greater than those without the condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Because round-the-clock care from a registered nurse or certified nursing assistant is frequently required, therapy and counseling costs are included in medical expenses. In addition, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, and developmental treatment will very certainly be required on a regular and continuous basis.
2. Disability Accommodations
Adjustments to tasks, environments, or the way things are generally done that allow people with disabilities to participate equally in society are known as disability accommodations.
Suing for compensation for a birth injury claim can assist families pay for a variety of disability adjustments, such as vehicle upgrades, home modifications, and lengthy care requirements relating to your child’s injury. In the case of permanent disability, your child can get enjoy lots of benefits and all these things you can do through NDIS Services.
3. Special-Needs Education
Special education is needed to provide children with identified disabilities specialized instruction to meet their unique learning needs. Parents always endeavor to give these children whatever resources necessary to help them achieve their potential, which can be costly.
Parents of children with cerebral palsy and other permanent impairments caused by a birth trauma may benefit from compensation for special education requirements.
4. Pain and Suffering
Accounts for physical pain and suffering, as well as the emotional distress related to a severe birth injury. These are called non-economic damages, and there is no limit on these. Compensation won’t eliminate the hardship that your child will endure for his or her lifetime. Still, pain and suffering damages can make life easier on your entire family.
5. Punitive Damages
Reparations are granted at the discretion of the jury to punish defendants who have engaged in severe situations of recklessness and abuse, as well as to discourage them from participating in similarly careless or purposefully criminal actions in the future. Punitive penalties are sometimes capped at $350,000-$500,000, or five times compensatory damages.
Seek Help, Fast
If you or a loved one has a new-born child who has suffered dire consequences following a birth injury that occurred during or shortly after delivery, and you want to bring the party accountable to justice, you must act quickly. Timing matters because the statute of limitations, which may see your case thrown out the window even if all evidence shows medical negligence, limits your time to file.
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