Personal Injury Law

Chicago Hospital Accused of Medical Malpractice

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

A woman who battled against malaria has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the first hospital where she received treatment. The medical malpractice lawsuit contends that the hospital allowed her condition to deteriorate so thoroughly that her arms and legs had to be amputated. The 34-year old victim had traveled to Ghana in February of 2008 and there was bitten by a mosquito carrying the malaria parasite. At the time she was not taking anti-malarial medication and when she returned to Chicago, she suffered increasingly severe headaches and fatigue.

This prompted her to visit the emergency room at Chicago?s Northwestern Memorial Hospital. While the hospital did diagnose the victim with malaria, they did not treat it aggressively enough in the early stages. Instead they treated her as if she had non-complicated malaria, despite evidence that it was far more advanced. Her condition continued to worsen and she lost circulation to her extremities. After six days at Northwestern Memorial, she was transferred to the burn unit at the University of Chicago Medical Center where a surgeon had to amputate her arms and legs. The medical malpractice lawsuit has since been filed in Cook County Circuit Court.

Doctors have a duty to aggressively treat all diseases to their best ability. If diseases are not properly diagnosed, drastic effects may ensue such as the amputation in this case. If you believe that you did not receive adequate treatment at a Chicago hospital, contact a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer. To read more about the malaria case, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on March 01, 2010 (boomark / email).