I want to claim for a kidney stones misdiagnosis in hospital after mistakenly and embarrassingly being diagnosed with epididymitis. Where do I start?
The first thing you should do is speak with a solicitor to establish your entitlement to claim for a kidney stones misdiagnosis in hospital. The solicitor will want to know the circumstances of your hospital misdiagnosis, what antibiotics you were prescribed to treat the incorrect diagnosis of epididymitis, how long after the original misdiagnosis you found out that you were suffering from kidney stones and how that delay caused your condition to deteriorate.
Despite the embarrassing nature of the misdiagnosis, you must have suffered an injury or the avoidable deterioration of your kidney stones condition in order to be eligible to claim compensation for a kidney stone misdiagnosis. If you have been in significant pain while taking the mistakenly prescribed antibiotics, or will now require surgery to remove the kidney stones – whereas they could have been treated with medication had the correct diagnosis been made originally – your solicitor will arrange for a medical expert to review your medical notes from your initial visit to the hospital.
The medical expert will not only look for possible negligence by the diagnosing doctor, but also at the way in which the tests were conducted and processed which lead to the misdiagnosis being made. The doctor may have made the error due to a mistake made in a laboratory or in an administration department and, if after reviewing the notes of your diagnosis, the medical expert believes that ‘in the time and in the circumstances’ one of the team involved in your treatment displayed a poor professional performance, the expert will provide the evidence of negligence to your solicitor.
Your solicitor will thereafter discuss with you whether you still wish to proceed with a claim for a kidney stones misdiagnosis in hospital as, unlike most personal injury claims, claims for compensation for a kidney stone misdiagnosis are not dealt with by the Injuries Board but directly with the hospital and the Health Service Executive. If you still want to claim compensation for the misdiagnosis of kidney stones, your solicitor will send a ‘Letter of Claim’ to the hospital, advising them that you have been misdiagnosed with epididymitis and supporting the letter with the evidence of negligence compiled by the medical expert.
It is difficult to estimate how long a claim for a kidney stones misdiagnosis in hospital will take to be resolved, as compiling evidence of negligence in a laboratory or administrative environment can be complicated – as can obtaining an admission of liability from the Health Service Executive. How much compensation for a kidney stone misdiagnosis you are entitled to will depend on the effect the misdiagnosis has had on your health and whether you fully communicated all the symptoms you were experiencing to the doctor at the time of the misdiagnosis.
Therefore, it would be in your best interests to speak with a solicitor at the first possible opportunity to discuss the consequences of the hospital error and to ensure that you are eligible to claim compensation for the misdiagnosis of kidney stones.