A misdiagnosis can certainly be fatal. You trust your doctor to make a quick diagnosis and get you the help that you need. If you come in with a serious problem and the doctor misses it, you know that the results could be very serious.
A delayed diagnosis is similar, but people often think that it’s not quite as serious. Simply by virtue of the fact that it was only delayed, this implies that the correct diagnosis was eventually made by the medical team. You may not have gotten the treatment that you needed right away, but you got it in the end. How could something like this still be fatal?
How far did your disease progress?
The way that this can become fatal is that certain diseases or medical conditions can progress when they’re left untreated. A significant delay means that there is simply more time for this disease to grow and take hold. By the time it is discovered, a treatment that would have worked before may no longer be possible.
There are many different examples of this, but one of the most obvious is cancer. Any doctor will tell you that one of the keys to treating cancer is to catch it as early as possible. Even if your doctor only delays that process by a few months, it could be enough that treatment is no longer viable or that you no longer recover. They may tell you that your cancer has progressed so far that it is now a terminal condition.
If you’ve been through a mistake like this, it can be devastating for you and your family. Take the time to carefully consider your legal options.
