Mother awarded $4 million after failure to diagnose causes death

Many parents in Louisiana fear a day when their child may become ill and they are unable to do anything to fix it. Sometimes, parents who are ill with what may seem, to an adult, to be a minor illness may ask that their children be tested for that illness in order to prevent it or catch it early. A similar situation arose for one mother and her 32-day-old daughter. Unfortunately, the doctors’ failure to diagnose illness in the child resulted in her death.

The mother visited a doctor’s office on multiple occasions in 2016. During her visits, she asked doctors to test her child for whooping cough, or pertussis, because she was experiencing symptoms of the illness. Unfortunately, the child later died due to complications from this same illness.

When doctors failed to test her child for illness, the mother filed a civil complaint. It was later determined that the doctors should have tested, diagnosed and treated the child’s illness much sooner than they did. Also, it was revealed that the mother had not had the opportunity to vaccinate the child due to her young age. The mother was awarded $4 million in a medical malpractice suit regarding the death of her child.

What may be a minor illness for an adult can have a serious, even devastating effect on a young child in a very short amount of time. Louisiana residents who believe that they or a loved one has suffered due to a failure to diagnose could benefit from speaking with an attorney about filing a medical malpractice suit. Victims may be entitled to compensation for additional medical costs, pain and suffering, funeral costs, or other damages.

Source: ydr.com, “Central Pa. mom gets $4M in medical malpractice suit for baby’s death“, Candy Woodall, May 17, 2018