Our client, due to a previous injury at the age of 16, essentially relied on the use of only his right arm for throughout duration of his adult life. Despite the loss of his left arm, our client was a successful dogman and rigger until the unfortunate experience he had after attending this well-known public hospital.
While exercising and training using a punching bag, our client accidentally struck the strap of the back and experienced immediate pain and swelling. He attended upon the local public hospital emergency room and an x-ray was taken of the painful, swollen lump on his right hand. Despite his requests for surgical intervention, namely open reduction and internal fixation, our client was provided with a plaster cast and discharged. Over the course of the following several weeks, our client continued to experience severe pain and even re-presented to the same public hospital but, again, he received no further treatment.
It wasn’t until some 6 weeks later, after consulting his regular General Practitioner, when a CT scan was organized which revealed the multiple fractures in the right hand. The extent of the fractures required immediate surgery: the same open reduction and internal fixation our client mentioned during his initial emergency room presentation.
Due to the delay in the appropriate treatment, our client has suffered devastating and life-altering disability to his right dominant hand. Our client underwent extensive physiotherapy and treatment but, unfortunately, he still has persistent pain, stiffness, and has a lost a lot of dexterity. The prognosis, now that the injury occurred some 18 months ago and has essentially settled, is it appears that our client may never regain full use of his hand and his current injuries are permanent. These permanent injuries have severely impacted his day-to-day life, preventing him from gardening and even impacting his ability to return to his pre-injury employment or any type of manual work whatsoever.
The medical negligence lawyers at Gerard Malouf & Partners understood the tragic impact this hospital’s medical negligence had on our client’s life. Through series of investigations and research, at absolutely no cost to the client, Gerard Malouf & Partners exposed the failures of this hospital and held them accountable for our client’s costs: both medical and personal. Our client’s life will never be the same because of this medical negligence but the $475,000 compensation that Gerard Malouf & Partners were able to negotiate, without taking the matter to a hearing, will go a long way in assisting our client with adapting to the new challenges he is forced to face.
