Like many states, Texas has limitations on how much you can add to a medical malpractice claim for pain and suffering and related damages. According to an article in the New York Times, these types of limitations are being pushed at a national level. Measures that would limit the amount of money that could be attached to a medical malpractice claim for pain and suffering to $250,000. This limitation, according to the article and many experts, is woefully inadequate given what some malpractice victims are put through.
The Nature of Medical Malpractice
For many victims of negligent doctors, the financial damages they suffer are not as significant in their memories as are the pain and suffering that they are put through. This pain and suffering can be more than unpleasant. In some cases, it can be severely traumatic. The pain and suffering that patients are put through by doctors who are negligent generally has one characteristic in common between each of the different incidents where it occurs: it never should have happened.
In some cases, pain and suffering are parts of life-saving treatment. The pain that people who need dialysis, chemotherapy, surgeries and other procedures go through is something that everyone understands and that patients agree to endure because of the potential benefits of the procedures they’re being given. When those procedures are not necessary, however, or when they actually bring the patient to further harm, then there is sometimes cause to sue for malpractice.
How and Pain and Suffering Cost Money?
Pain is one of the most underestimated forces in the world. Pain can make it impossible to work, impossible to relax, can reduce a person’s quality of life to the point where they question whether it’s even worth living anymore and can affect everyone around the victim in many different ways. Severe pain and suffering can be as severe and debilitating as any other medical condition and, for that reason, attorneys sometimes encourage their patients to sue for pain and suffering when their doctors are negligent.
The limitations being suggested by Congress are very austere. They would make it impossible for some victims of medical malpractice to be compensated as they deserve to be. The justification being given for imposing these restrictions is that they would lower the cost of healthcare, even though tort reform has been demonstrated over and over to not have a substantial effect on healthcare costs.
Talking to a Medical Negligence Lawyer
If you’ve been caused pain and suffering by a negligent doctor, speak to a medical malpractice attorney. They may be able to help you get compensation for what you’ve been put through. Texas medical malpractice attorneys can help you to deal with the state’s limitations on medical malpractice claims and ensure that you get the compensation you deserve. While politicians may want to interject themselves into these matters, malpractice is between a patient and a physician and, when that patient is made to suffer, suing is one of their rights.