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Man in his 40s receives $450,000 in compensation following a failure to diagnose and treat a colonic structure

Case Overview
  • Our client sustained an injury following a failure to diagnose and treat bowel stricture in 2014. Our client later ended up needing extensive surgery which would have been avoided if he had been diagnosed and treated in the first instance.
  • We gathered our client’s medical story as well as qualified healthcare professionals input to support our claim. We also consulted with a Forensic Accountant to comment on the economic loss suffered by our client.
  • The hospital relied upon evidence from multiple experts and argued that their management of our client was adequate. Despite this, we were able to settle our client’s matter out of court for $450,000.00.

Our client was a man in his 40s who sustained an injury following a failure to diagnose and treat bowel stricture in 2014. Our client later ended up needing extensive surgery which would have been avoided if he had been diagnosed and treated in the first instance.

Our client suffered serious complications following his more extensive surgery and was unable to work. He also required future surgeries to treat his condition and was concerned about supporting his young family. As a result, he called Gerard Malouf & Partners for more information and to see if he had a claim.

Our Approach

Having spent countless hours working on cases involving bowel strictures and perforations, and having had numerous discussions with top experts over the years, we were able to quickly identify that there had been a delay in diagnosing and treating our client’s condition, and there was evidence to suggest that this delay had resulted in our client’s poor outcome.

We opened a file on our client’s behalf and requested all of his clinical notes from the hospital and other health care providers. We took a careful history from our client and scrutinised every page of her clinical history taking careful note of any evidence that his condition could have been diagnosed earlier. We then drafted a qualifying letter incorporating all of the evidence we had identified.

We qualified a gastrointestinal surgeon and a specialist general surgeon to provide an opinion. We also explored every aspect of our client’s damages and qualified a Forensic Accountant who was asked to comment on the economic loss suffered by our client’s family business.

The hospital relied upon evidence from multiple experts and argued that their management of our client was adequate. 

The Result

We were able to settle our client’s matter out of court for $450,000.

Ray Abbas

Partner
Ray Abbas from the Parramatta office was fantastic! Obtaining a great settlement exceeding our expectations. Highly recommend him.
Frequently Asked Questions

More Information

Negligence is a failure to exercise the care that another in the same position would prudently exercise. The harm caused by negligence is considered to be due to carelessness, rather than a specific intent or determination to cause harm.

While negligence can include misconduct in a variety of circumstances, malpractice is reserved for professionals who fall grossly short of their obligations — and harm others in the process. As a result, malpractice is often called “professional negligence”. If a licensed professional (such as a doctor, lawyer, or accountant) fails to provide the accepted standard of care and subsequently causes harm to the plaintiff, this form of negligence may be known as malpractice.

Medical malpractice is specifically used in reference to medical workers who have committed acts of negligence.

Demonstrating that a doctor fell short of their duty of care can be a challenging process. While most doctors try their best to correctly diagnose conditions and provide timely medical treatment, they can’t always be right. In every state, protections are in place to shield practitioners from some litigation. These give practitioners peace of mind on the job and protect hospitals that are doing their best with limited resources. However, these laws also set the bar for receiving compensation incredibly high.

Overall, to win a favorable judgment, you must be able to prove Duty, Breach and Damages.

A delay in treatment is any situation where a patient isn’t provided the care they need to recover or improve their condition in a timely manner. While, generally, waiting a few extra days for an appointment will have no tangible impact on the outcome of a treatment, delaying treatment can sometimes impact the severity of an illness or even mean the difference between life and death.

If you have been injured or an existing condition has got worse following a medical procedure, or even just a visit to the doctor, then you may have been the victim of medical negligence and you may be eligible to make medical negligence claims against the professional who caused your injury.

If you can first show that you have suffered harm, and secondly, that a medical professional failed in their duty of care towards you then you may be entitled to compensation.

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More Case Summaries

Class Actions
At GMP Law, we have extensive experience in class action lawsuits, amplifying the voices of individuals who have experienced similar harms or losses.
About Us
Gerard Malouf & Partners have provided friendly, experienced legal advice to communities across Australia for over 35 years. Our Personal Injury Lawyers have taken on ten’s of thousands of cases and we are proud to have won billions of dollars for our clients.
Lawyers
Meet the diverse and dynamic team of compensation lawyers and supporting staff that have made this all happen below. Our multi-lingual team can discuss your claims in Arabic, Assyrian, Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, Serbian, Croatian, Armenian, Mandarin, Hindi, Punjabi or Malayalam.
Resources
Meet the diverse and dynamic team of compensation lawyers and supporting staff that have made this all happen below. Our multi-lingual team can discuss your claims in Arabic, Assyrian, Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, Serbian, Croatian, Armenian, Mandarin, Hindi, Punjabi or Malayalam.

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