We acted on behalf of a wife aged in her mid-40s, who lost her husband when he committed suicide whilst he was in the care of a mental health unit in a major Western Sydney Hospital.
Our client’s husband was a normal, hard-working man who had a family. One week prior to his admission to the mental health unit in the Hospital, he had an episode of psychosis as a result of a work altercation. Due his to psychosis including paranoia, he was voluntarily admitted into the hospital’s mental health unit for assessment and treatment. He was discharged the same day without proper assessment. A few days later, our client’s husband was taken back to the same hospital by the police due to suicide attempt. Unfortunately, whilst in hospital, our client’s husband committed suicide. The entire family was devastated and shocked.
Our client attended upon our office to seek justice and answers. She consulted our senior solicitor, Julie Baqleh who is an Accredited Personal Injury Law Specialist. We will happy to take on the matter and seek justice and compensation for our client.
As a result of the sudden loss of her husband, our client suffered psychiatric injuries including depression, anger, anxiety, sleep disruption as well as the requirement to attend psychiatrist for counselling. She also lost the financial support her husband had provided and other services he provided her. We advised our client on her rights to sue for her own personal injury damages, as well as her right to sue under the Compensation to Relatives Act for the loss of both financial and non-financial dependency.
We obtained expert evidence from a leading Psychiatrist in the country who confirmed that the hospital failed in their duty of care. Our expert was able to confirm that proper procedure in terms of mitigating the risk of suicide had not in fact been undertaken by the hospital staff. In addition, we obtained a medical report from another psychiatrist who assessed the extent of our client’s own psychiatric and emotional difficulties. We later commenced legal proceedings against the Hospital.
Ultimately, we proceeded to mediation with the solicitors of the Hospital. The mediation was very successful with the matter resolving for a large sum of compensation for both our client personal injury case and compensation to relative’s case. Our client’s case settled for an amount of over $500,000. Our client was most pleased with the result and the justice that had been served.
We are a highly focused and specialised medical negligence compensation law firm being small enough to care, yet large enough to have solid financial, medical and expert resources to match the big defendants and insurance firms. Our “no win no fee’’ arrangements and written guarantee to reduce fees in the unlikely event of a poor result is unmatched in the legal industry Australia-wide.
