Reports of medical negligence cases unfortunately appear all too regularly in the media, where victims have sustained injuries as a result of mistakes by medical staff and have successfully claimed compensation to help them cope with the impact this harm has had on their lives.

Medication Error Leads to Sight Loss

In one such case, an elderly man was awarded compensation amounting to £230,000 after medication he had been prescribed left him with severely restricted vision, reports the Exeter Express and Echo.

The 77-year-old had been taking the medication, which was known to affect vision in some cases, for a serious lung infection. While he was driving home from a holiday, he experienced blurred vision. He contacted the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, where he was undergoing treatment, but was told by medical staff to keep taking the medication.

His vision continued to deteriorate, and by the time he went to his local GP two weeks later, he was almost blind. He was immediately taken off the medication and referred to an Acute Eye unit.

Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust have now admitted that the man should have been referred to a specialist as soon as he started to complain of impaired vision, and the delay in him seeing a specialist was responsible for his loss of eye sight.

The trust has issued a written apology and said that changes have been implemented to ensure that similar cases will be handled differently in future.

Brain Damage Caused by Diagnosis Failure

In a second recently reported case, a woman sustained severe brain damage after medical staff failed to diagnose and then treat her brain infection, Gloucestershire Live reports.

She attended a hospital in Gloucestershire after developing severe headaches and was kept in overnight, but was subsequently sent home the next day without doctors recognising that she was suffering from viral encephalitis. She returned to hospital the next morning, where she was re-admitted as an emergency, but a further 48-hours passed before she was finally given the correct treatment.

As a result of these failings, she suffered severe brain damage, leaving her with acute amnesia and dependent on round-the-clock care.

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust has apparently admitted liability for her injuries and has publicly apologised.

The woman was awarded compensation comprising of a £1.1 million lump sum, plus inflation-linked annual payments for the rest of her life to help meet her ongoing care needs.

Commenting on the settlement, the judge overseeing the case praised the woman’s family for the care they had given her since her injury, and said that the compensation would help to ensure she would be ‘comfortable and secure’ for the rest of her life.

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If you have been a victim of medical negligence and would like to find out more about making a personal injury claim, then contact our specialist personal injury lawyers today. We will do our best to ensure you receive all the compensation you are entitled to.