Sometimes, people can be a little absentminded when busy, but forgetting a surgical patient is another level of negligence. That said, a North Carolina woman had undergone back surgery and was told she would be discharged on the same day. However, after the surgery was finished, she was placed on a bed in the ward for stroke patients. The doctor nor any nurses came to give her a post-surgery check-up. Instead, they left her lying on the bed “for 45 hours without food or water.”
The North Carolina woman’s daughter took to Reddit to share the story and seek legal advice for her mother’s mistreatment. The mother allegedly told the hospital staff that she wasn’t a stroke patient and had just undergone back surgery. However, “the nurses didn’t take her concerns seriously.” Eventually, a curious nurse approached the mother to ask what she was doing on the stroke floor. The patient explained that she “was not checked on during rounds,” after which the nurse discovered the irresponsible “doctor mistakenly believed she had already been discharged following her surgery.”
The woman was later discharged, but instead of receiving any sort of compensation or apology for the medical staff’s mistake, she was billed for the two additional days she was hospitalized. “Would it be worth pursuing a case? Where would I even begin?” the daughter asked r/legaladvice. Unfortunately, getting justice for her mother seems rather unlikely, according to the subreddit post’s responses.
“She can absolutely talk to an attorney if she wants. But it doesn’t sound like there are any specific damages to sue for,” reads the top comment. “Not sure if it is enough to be worth legal action over, but might be worth a consultation,” chimes in another. “Unless she suffered life changing circumstances because the doctor thought she was discharged, there’s not much there,” remarks a third. Basically, the only case the woman would be able to make would be the hospital unreasonably billing her for the extra two days.
Such an incident must have been rather traumatic for the mother to go through, not to mention her family must be quite upset with the hospital. It’s unfortunate that there appears to be little they can do to get justice for what happened, not to mention that OP mentions everything that occurred over two years ago. It definitely would have been better if they had sought out retribution sooner.
