I have written before about not all complications as a result of surgery being malpractice. However, one sad feature of our current medical system is that it often doesn’t matter whether a person’s suffering is caused by medical malpractice or not, it is sometimes impossible to recover damages. Consider the case of an Atlanta woman who had a hysterectomy, a laparoscopic procedure that normally takes about a week to recover from. However, as a result of complications from the procedure, she is still recovering four months later, having spent thousands of dollars out-of-pocket and lost thousands more in wages.
The complications are as a result of an expected complication of the surgery, a routine surgical error, the nicking of the ureter, the tube that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder, during the surgery. In many countries, the national health care system takes care of people even when complications arise during surgery. In New Zealand, Sweden, or Canada, the woman’s expenses would be covered, both those incurred as a result of the surgery and as a result of the unforeseen complications. However, in the United States, where every medical expense comes out of pocket even when you are insured, the woman’s only viable option is filing a lawsuit for compensation. In malpractice and defective drug cases, the legal tort portion of the system is often the only one that seems to work consistently.
But not always. When this woman consulted with personal injury lawyers, she found that she had fallen into an unfortunate gap in the only thing we have resembling a safety net. Lawyers refused to take her case because her damages were too low. To personal injury lawyers, $50,000 is a pittance, not worth pursuing. Unfortunately, for most people $50,000 is an unbearable expense. It can wipe out savings, forcing a person to get an additional mortgage, if they don’t already have one in this bad mortgage market. If we are seriously considering tort reform, one portion of the reform must work to close this gap, the gap between what most people can afford to pay in the event of medical complications, and what personal injury lawyers are willing to pursue. In the absence of a true safety net, let’s at least make the holes in this one a little smaller.
