Contrary to popular belief, society is not as litigious as it is often suggested Wrongful deaths account for about 200,000 deaths per year just from medical errors. About 100,000 deaths per year are a result of hospital patients catching an infections disease. Common causes of wrongful deaths in hospitals include errors in delivering babies, drug overdoes, preventable infections, misdiagnosis, and removing the wrong body parts. The vast majority of these wrongful deaths go without anyone every making a claim. Wrongful death lawyers are not consulted very often following the death of a loved one. The last thing a family thinks about is filing a lawsuit after they have lost a loved one. Very often years go by before a family consults with a wrongful death lawyer and by that time it is often too late, because the statute of limitations has run out. At that time no action can be taken by the family. Very often doctors know they have committed the error, but in the vast majority of cases they will not accept responsibility and neither the hospital nor the doctor will make an effort to apologize for the wrongful death resulting from their actions or lack of action. Jury verdicts are often extreme because this indifference from doctors and hospitals to the life they have taken. This general indifference to wrong doing is what leads to lawsuits, often families just want to know why and how something like that could have occurred. The families are often not looking for a wrongful death claim and not looking to hire a wrongful death attorney, they merely want closure and if an error was committed they want an apology. It is not uncommon for doctors to be so arrogant as to tell patients they are wrong when t he patient thinks something was done incorrectly. “I am the doctor and you are the patient,” is a typical response. In their efforts to churn patients as quick as possible doctors not only fail to listen but commit numerous errors and some of which manifest themselves in a wrongful death. The sad part is that those that keep doctors and hospitals on their toes, the wrongful death lawyers and the medical malpractice lawyers are often characterized as the wrong doers. The families are often characterized as greedy, but what motivation would a doctor have to do their best if there would be no consequences for their actions. There are so many good health care systems in other parts of the world, but why would a well entrenched medical system want to change when medical specialists often make as much as $4,000 a day ? It is wonderful that we have a president that has lofty goals and hopes to change the system, but wrongful deaths are unlikely to become a thing of the past as long as their is a buck to be made. There are long lines of doctors from other countries waiting to come in to cash in.
http://www.chron.com/deadbymistake/