Legal case against hospital mis-diagnos

My mother fell backwards at home on March 6 morning and hurt her back. Brought to hospital ER via ambulance. I told Doctor that she had prior compressional fracture on her spine, but did not know where (since she hurt herself about a year ago in China).

The doctor ordered CT scan of her lumbar because she complained of lower back pain. After the doctor issued the order I was concerned whether the CT scan should cover also higher areas of the spine besides the lumbar but I was not able to change the order.

After the doc. read the image he decides that she did not broke her spine. It's soft tissue injury. In order to reassure me the doctor said that the CT Scan even showed her old fracture but no new fracture. He suggested rest, but not confined to bed, since movements helps to recover soft tissue injuries. I did not ask for a copy of the image nor did I know that I should ask for a formal copy of the radiologist report.

My mother kept complaining of pain on her butt and on her back and I have been bringing her to see doctors of different specialty. Finally a doctor with x-ray machine in his clinic ordered that she take x-rays and find out that her spine is now tilted and also one of the spine bone is severely compressed, compared to the old CT scan -- which indicates that there was a new fracture at the time of injury, and we missed the opportunity to bed rest and recover. Instead she was trying to follow the doctor's order to move about.

So the issue is the CT scan was mis-read and the suggestion of not to bed rest was entirely wrong -- we found this out only 3 months later which is too late to do anything.

Is there any legal case against the hospital for their mis-diagnos? I am just so upset about my own stupidity and also very upset about how the hospital handle the case.

所有跟帖： 

• 回複：Legal case against hospital mis-diagnos -mdgg- ♂ (115 bytes) () 06/03/2008 postreply 13:46:14

• 回複：回複：Legal case against hospital mis-diagnos -market_123- ♀ (0 bytes) () 06/03/2008 postreply 16:51:09

• 回複：回複：Legal case against hospital mis-diagnos -market_123- ♀ (1526 bytes) () 06/03/2008 postreply 17:00:31

• 回複：回複：回複：Legal case against hospital mis-diagnos -mdgg- ♂ (685 bytes) () 06/03/2008 postreply 18:17:21

• 回複：回複：回複：回複：Legal case against hospital mis-diagnos -market_123- ♀ (550 bytes) () 06/03/2008 postreply 18:28:50