Medical malpractice certainly affects patients. But patients are not the only victims when Chicago doctors make serious mistakes. Patients’ loved ones are also harmed by the mistakes of doctors, surgeons, nurses, pharmacists and hospitals. Although families and spouses of injured patients may not experience physical harm, they may experience emotional harm and other consequences that may haunt them for the rest of their lives.
When medical malpractice results in the wrongful death of a patient, families are often left devastated by the sudden and unexpected loss of their loved one. For many families, this emotional suffering may never go away. In addition to experiencing emotional pain after losing a loved one, families may experience financial hardships, especially when a medical malpractice victim was responsible for supporting a spouse and young children.
Because of these sufferings, families of medical malpractice victims have the right to pursue wrongful death claims. Although no amount of money will ever make up for what some Illinois families have to go through because of doctors’ life-altering medical mistakes, any amount of compensation that is recovered may offer families some financial relief.
One woman in Illinois recently filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against her deceased husband’s optometrist in order to obtain financial relief after losing her husband to cancer. The woman claims that the optometrist had failed to diagnose her husband’s cancer when the cancer should have been detected. As a result of the doctor’s failure to diagnose cancer, the woman’s husband died of cancer.
The woman’s husband went through a great deal of pain and suffering because of the eye doctor’s alleged mistake. But the woman claims that she has also suffered consequences, and now she wants financial relief. According to the lawsuit, the woman is requesting that she receive at least $100,000 for her losses, including the loss of support, care, affection and love from her husband.
Source: The Madison-St. Clair Record, “Optometrist accused of failing to diagnose fatal ocular melanoma,” Kelly Holleran, May 8, 2013
