by diazlaw | Sep 11, 2018 | Blog
There are many ways that a prescribed medication could end up harming the person it was intended to help. In most cases this is not the fault of the patient, unless that person has given wrong information about their health complaint to the doctor who prescribed the medication. More often, a wrong prescription medication is due to an error made at some point in the supply chain that starts with the manufacturer of the drug and ends with the patient. More specifically, the fault could lie with: the manufacturer; the doctor who prescribed the medication; the pharmacist who supplied the medication; someone else, such as the distributor of the drugs, a pharmacist’s assistant etc. Consequences of a wrong prescription medication There is no hard and fast answer to the sorts of consequences that could result from a wrong prescription medication. They could range from no effect at all, i.e. the medication supplied is totally ineffective, yet not harmful, right through to very serious ill effects and even death. If you suspect that you have taken a wrong prescription medication, you should certainly seek medical attention straight away and ensure that the medication you have been given is tested for contents while retaining proof of what you have been given for legal attention. If the effect on you is serious (i.e. not just a mild headache), you should contact a medical malpractice attorney, or a personal injury attorney with experience in medication errors as soon as possible. Determining who was at fault As has already been mentioned above, apart from a patient unintentionally misinforming a doctor about their complaint, there...
by diazlaw | Aug 20, 2018 | Blog
Life seemingly gets more and more complicated all the time. Although technology has in countless ways made life simpler, it also has increased the number of tasks we can tackle and perform from just about anywhere. Where once a car drive was a means only to get from Point A to Point B, cell phones now permit an opportunity to do business, check on the family via Facetime or Skype, or simply keep up with social media while traveling. This has created the very significant danger of the distracted Jackson Mississippi driver who attempts to do these things while driving or stopped at a stop sign or light. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 10% of serious or fatal incidents and 17% of minor injuries that occurred in an accident happened because the driver was distracted. In fact, in 2011, 3,331 people died due to distracted driving. Distracted Driving These statistics make it clear that Mississippi, as well as other states throughout our country, have to take action against distracted driving. After all, they realize that distracted driving is the leading cause of traffic collisions. As the name implies, distracted driving is any activity or behavior that displaces the attention of the driver of a motor vehicle from the act of driving. Some examples of distracted driving include eating while driving, interacting with other people in the car or changing the audio reception. However, by far, the single most dangerous form of distracted driving involves texting. The Unique Dangers of Texting Those who study distracted driving report there are three separate and distinct ways in which...
by diazlaw | Aug 8, 2018 | Blog
What’s the Difference Between a Workers’ Comp. and a Personal Injury Claim? For ordinary Mississippi workers, it can be hard to know how to cope financially if a serious injury occurs. Many workers are hard pushed to find enough money for basic needs if they can’t get their regular paycheck and yet a serious injury can see them off work for weeks or even months. Hospital bills can quickly mount up and even those people who are insured may find that their insurance is insufficient for anything but basic treatment. Workers’ compensation in Mississippi If the injury has been caused at work most workers should be covered by their employer’s workers’ compensation insurance. This is a basic form of compensation which covers medical treatment, often at the employer’s designated provider, and a percentage, typically around two thirds, of any wages that have been lost. Workers’ compensation may also cover future estimated medical treatment if the injury is long term as well as compensation for permanent disability. Not all workers’ compensation claims are honored straight away. The ball tends to be in the employer’s insurer’s court and even though workers’ comp. claims are theoretically no-fault claims (i.e. are not dependent on proving negligence by the employer) are frequently denied. Workers’ comp. claim denials often entail lengthy and complex appeals. These are rarely won without the help of an experienced workers’ compensation attorney. Certainly, if you have learned that your workers’ comp. claim has been denied for some reason, you should contact an attorney to discuss how you can appeal the decision. Mississippi personal injury claims Any injuries that have been...
by diazlaw | Jul 13, 2018 | Blog
The time after a patient is discharged from hospital can be potentially one of the most dangerous. This is mainly because any mistakes that are made with surgery, diagnosis or medication are less likely to be monitored by the patients themselves, by home care agencies, nursing homes or any other of the plethora of care agencies that might be involved after discharge. Medication mistakes the most common post discharge problem Medication mistakes are regarded by federal health authorities as some of the most common causes of post discharge complications. Health inspectors found that over 3,000 ‘me health agencies between 2010 and 2015 had failed to review medications for patients released into their care after a period in hospital. In some cases, nurses failed to notice that medications that had been prescribed consisted of a dangerous cocktail of drugs. Typical health complications included kidney damage, seizures, abnormal heart rhythms and bleeding. The numbers represented 25% of agencies inspected. It is partly the diversity of providers that contributes to potential health problems post discharge. A lack of effective communication between these diverse providers is a common source of error. The chief medical officer at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a non-profit organization, has reported that none of the 30 billion dollars made available by Congress to digitize medical records has ended up in nursing homes, home care agencies working with individuals in their own homes or rehabilitation services. Roughly half of the individual patients discharged by hospitals have said that they are confident understanding instructions on packets of drugs they have been prescribed. A third of nursing homes have been found...
by diazlaw | Jun 18, 2018 | Blog, Personal Injury
Personal injury lawsuits in Mississippi are like they are in any other state. They are designed to compensate an innocent victim of an injury for the harm that the injury has caused. Occasionally, the victim may have suffered from a wrongdoing that was particularly deliberate and intentional. If this can be proven, then the plaintiff may be awarded a separate payment on top of any others that have been paid out as a result of the lawsuit. This extra payment is known as punitive damages and its main purpose is to punish the wrongdoer for his or her actions, or for the actions of a company, if this is the wrongdoer. Economic and non-economic damages in a Mississippi personal injury lawsuit Punitive damages are not regarded as non-economic damages in Mississippi, even though like these damage awards, the amount awarded cannot have an easily determined monetary value, like medical treatment, the use of an ambulance or the repair to a vehicle or other property. Generally, a personal injury claim for damages is divided up between economic damages and non-economic damages. Economic damages are the easier of the two categories to define and show evidence for. The usual economic damages in a personal injury lawsuit include: medical treatment, including an amount for any future treatment if needed; transport costs related to the injury, especially if the plaintiff has lost the use of his or her vehicle after a car crash; lost earnings, wages, etc. as a result of not being able to work as normal including future lost earnings if necessary; repair or replacement of personal property damaged at the...
by diazlaw | Jun 1, 2018 | Blog
Anyone who has unknowingly been given the wrong prescription for medication or the wrong drugs or pills could be seriously harmed or even die. Adverse drug events (ADEs) are extremely common and can cause long lasting health issues for those who are affected. The main sources of ADEs are as follows: A physician prescribing the wrong medication, either because of the wrong diagnosis or a simple error, e.g. the correct drug, but the wrong dosage, or the correct dosage but the wrong drug. A pharmacist or pharmacist’s assistant mixing up the prescription and delivering the wrong drug, or the correct drug at the wrong concentration, or both. The use of a defective or untested drug. An undetected or previously unnoticed allergy to a particular drug, precipitating a harmful reaction. There are many reasons why a prescription error can take place. The physician may make a mistake when prescribing a drug. There are many drugs that have very similar names, yet are prescribed for very different conditions. Some examples are Hydralazine and Hydroxyzine; Navane and Norvasc, Paxil and Plavix, Lovenox and Levemir. Pharmacists may be extremely busy and allocate prescriptions to pharmacists’ assistants. These assistants may have received insufficient training, or are too tired from overwork to make up the correct medication or misinterpret the prescription made by the physician. Case study of a medication error A 71year old woman was diagnosed as having acute kidney injury and uncontrolled hypertension amongst other health problems. She was prescribed a drug called amlodipine (brand name Norvasc), as well as metroprolol, doxazosin and torsemide. Over the next 3 months her health deteriorated and...
