Hospitals are a place we rely on to help us when we are sick, need surgery, or are injured. They employ doctors, nurses, and other staff who treat patients daily and serve as important community resources. However, hospitals sometimes fail to meet expected standards of care, which may severely sicken or hurt patients.
If you or someone you care about suffered injury or contracted an infection during a hospital stay, state law allows you to file a lawsuit seeking damages for your medical bills, pain and suffering, and more. If you need advice about what to do next, contact a Charlottesville hospital negligence lawyer at MichieHamlett for help with your case. Our experienced medical malpractice attorneys could review your situation and advise on the next steps.
When evaluating your case, your Charlottesville hospital negligence attorney needs to know when you became ill or injured and when the hospital treated you. This is because Virginia law has a statute of limitations for each medical malpractice claim. You must file most hospital liability claims within two years of the injury. However, there are some important exceptions that may be relevant.
In some cases, state law recognizes that the statute of limitations should not begin until you discover the injury. For example, if a foreign object, such as a sponge or surgical instrument, remains inside after a hospital procedure, the statute of limitations runs from one year after you discover the object.
Another example involves hospital fraud or intentional acts that prevent victims from discovering their injury. You would then have one year from discovery to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Similarly, if hospital staff fail to diagnose cancer, the statute does not begin until staff communicate the correct diagnosis to you, giving you one year to file before the statute bars your claims.
Finally, for ongoing malpractice, you may extend the statute of limitations so that tolling does not begin until the improper treatment ends. For example, if you receive a misdiagnosis of a sprained ankle and continue visiting the hospital for treatment, only to discover months later you had a fracture, the statute would not begin tolling until you learn the correct diagnosis and stop treatment with that medical team.
The state has many hospitals associated with state universities. Depending on your treatment details and the medical professionals involved, you may need to sue hospital employees who are state employees. In these cases, your Charlottesville hospital malpractice attorney may help you file suit under the Virginia Tort Claims Act, which shortens the statute of limitations to just one year.
If a hospital’s negligent standards injured you, you know that you deserve justice for what you have gone through. However, facing a big hospital and its legal team can feel intimidating. That is why you need an experienced legal team to handle your case.
A Charlottesville hospital negligence lawyer from MichieHamlett knows how to handle medical malpractice cases against hospitals. Call us today and let us take the worries about your legal claims off your shoulders.
