Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in Louisiana

Do I have a case for medical malpractice?

My 12 year old daughter has cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus. She needs a shunt to drain the fluid off her brain. In November of last year she began to get sick. I set an appointment for her at the family practice doctor. She did have a ruptured ear drum from an ear infecton. She was not getting better after the medicine. I called the clinic where she sees the Nuerosurgeon (he travels to this clinic) and explained her symptoms and requested that she have a Cat scan and shunt series x rays. The doctor ordered these and I brought her. The results came back and he said there was a small area that he could not see and she needed to have the x rays redone. I brought her again. I was having a hard time getting any info from him about the results. ( I was going through the clinic, who was getting the information from him) I even brought her into the ER. They said gave her a shot of infection med, thinking it was the ear causing the problem. My daughter continued to get worse. I returned to her family doctor, who sent us right over to the hospital to be admitted. She thoughtht that maybe she had developed meningitis. Even given her history and the fact that she has a shunt. no more tests were done when she was not getting better. After a week in the hopital she went code blue and the nurse had to bag her. well, they finally got the right doctor in there to help her. Turns out she had 30% pressure on her brain, when it should be at about 5%. He performed an emergency surgery in her room to put a drain for the fluid. She was flown on an airplane the next day to a Childrens Hopital. She remained on a ventilator for about a week. She finally had the surgery to replace the shunt. She was in the Childrens Hopital 2 weeks.

My question is do I have a medical malpractice case and how long to file it. This happened in Nov-Dec 2009.


Asked on 9/02/10, 9:21 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Martha Amanda Mandi Lucas Mandie Seale Lucas

You should bring everything to an attorney who specializes in medical malpractice. They will need to review medical records. There must be negligence on the part of the doctor or hospital and your daughter will have to have sustained damage caused by the negligence. Personal injury suits must be filed within 1year of the injury.

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Answered on 9/07/10, 1:00 pm


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