Has your husband, wife or partner died from necrotising fasciitis? Could their death have been prevented with better medical care? Are you thinking about pursuing a medical negligence claim against those responsible?
If so, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us today. We can provide you with professional legal advice during this difficult time.
Necrotising fasciitis deaths
Necrotising fasciitis will be fatal if treatment is not given in time. It is an aggressive, fast-moving bacterial infection that can quickly cause widespread tissue death, blood poisoning and organ failure.
Therefore necrotising fasciitis does have a very high mortality rate. The longer treatment is delayed, the worse the outcome will be.
If treatment is not given in the early stages, it may be that a patient survives but requires extensive surgical debridement/amputation and a very long road to recovery. Or the infection may have spread to the blood, resulting in multi-system organ failure, which the patient is simply too weak to overcome.
Necrotising fasciitis death – are doctors to blame?
As mentioned above, necrotising fasciitis is very aggressive and a patient will deteriorate quickly. Furthermore, the early symptoms are fairly vague, mimicking illnesses such as the flu.
All of these things can conspire so that the patient does not actually seek medical help until they are in the advanced stages of necrotising fasciitis. At this point it may be too late to save a patient, even with a prompt diagnosis and immediate treatment.
However, there are times when a patient does go straight to a GP or hospital as soon as they develop the first symptoms. But instead of recognising the early signs of a tissue infection and organising urgent tests, medical practitioners send a patient away without an accurate diagnosis.
If medical errors are to blame for a delay in the diagnosis and treatment of necrotising fasciitis, there may well be grounds for a medical negligence claim.
Necrotising fasciitis claims
Often such claims arise because an unacceptable amount of time passes between a patient presenting with symptoms and the patient undergoing debridement surgery. Consequently the patient suffers severe or fatal consequences.
If something similar happened to you or your loved one, you need to seek expert medical advice. It is possible that with better medical care, the effects of necrotising fasciitis could have been significantly minimised, and/or your loved one could have been saved.
Contact us
For expert legal advice on necrotising fasciitis claims, please contact us today.
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