Prompt diagnosis of pediatric meningitis is essential to your child’s ability to overcome the disease. Unfortunately, meningitis has several symptoms in common with more common and less dangerous diseases, leading to an increase in missed or delayed diagnoses that can impact your child’s life, happiness, and well-being. If their pediatrician doesn’t diagnose or treat your child’s meningitis correctly, you may have a malpractice case. A Pennsylvania pediatric medical malpractice attorney can help you file against them, and that case may help you recover legal settlements.
What Is Pediatric Meningitis and What Constitutes Malpractice?
Pediatric meningitis is an infection that can cause the membranes around your child’s brain and spinal cord to swell. That swelling can lead to temporary or permanent brain damage, learning disabilities, hearing loss, and in some cases, death.
Prompt diagnoses will let your pediatrician treat them appropriately and, in many instances, can help your child make a full recovery. However, failure to diagnose pediatric meningitis by not running the appropriate tests or ignoring telltale signs that your child is suffering from meningitis could make them liable for malpractice.
If your child’s doctor clearly violated their duty of care and ignored best practices, speak with a Pennsylvania pediatric medical malpractice attorney immediately. They’ll review your case and help you decide on the best next steps.
Common Child Meningitis Legal Settlements
Every case is different and the amount you may recover as a legal settlement will be different as well. The common damages that families may recover include compensation for:
- Medical bills: You may be able to recover compensation to help you pay for any surgeries, medications, treatments, and hospital stays associated with your child’s meningitis.
- Pain and suffering: You may be able to recover compensation to account for your child’s physical and emotional pain experienced as a result of their meningitis.
- Loss of consortium: If your child is not able to show the same love and affection they would had their meningitis been properly diagnosed, you may be able to sue for loss of consortium damages. This compensates you for the loss of the parent-child relationship you and your child otherwise would’ve had.
- Necessary home modifications: If your child’s delayed meningitis diagnosis results in a permanent disability that requires home modifications to accommodate, you may be able to recover compensation to help pay for those modifications.
- Wrongful death: If your child passes away as a result of their condition and that death could’ve been prevented with prompt diagnosis and treatment, you may be able to sue for wrongful death damages.
Your Pennsylvania pediatric malpractice attorney can help you determine which types of damages you may be eligible for, and which you should pursue in your malpractice suit. Depending on your case, you may be eligible for some or all of these damages.
Work With a Pennsylvania Pediatric Malpractice Attorney
If you believe your child’s pediatrician violated their duty of care when diagnosing or treating your child for meningitis, the sooner you can speak with a Pennsylvania pediatric malpractice attorney, the better. Your attorney will be able to review your case and help you decide if using your child’s doctor is in your best interest.
If it is, they’ll help you compile the necessary evidence, find expert witnesses to testify on your behalf, and hold the medical care providers responsible for their actions.
Schedule a Consultation Today
Pediatric meningitis is treatable, but for the disease to be properly managed and for your child to recover, doctors must be able to recognize the signs and properly diagnose your child. If your child’s pediatrician didn’t diagnose your child correctly and your child suffered needlessly, don’t wait. Schedule a consultation with Latona Law and let our team help.