Are hospitals trying to avoid paying for birth injuries?

A lot can go wrong with a newborn during the delivery process. Birth injuries are sadly more common than many might suspect. Sometimes, the newborn’s family pursues a medical malpractice claim against the health care professionals and/or the facility that caused the injury. These lawsuits can result in massive verdicts, and now some Maryland hospitals are advocating for legislation that may help them avoid paying such verdicts in the future.

Some representatives of area hospitals say that when a medical facility is found liable for birth injuries, the resulting monetary judgment can bankrupt the hospital and/or the doctor. It is rumored that some doctors are thinking about leaving the state altogether. There is a push for legislation that would award a victim a lifetime of medical care, rather than a lump sum dollar amount. In the past, some Maryland families have received judgments that amount to millions of dollars.

If the new legislation becomes law, parents of birth injury victims would still file suit in civil court. If the court were to find in favor of the plaintiff, the verdict would call for a lifetime of free medical care for the injured child. Since monetary judgments currently provide a family with the funds necessary to pay for future medical expenses, parents may be unhappy that an award may now be mostly in the form of medical care from a facility that already injured their child.

Nevertheless, as it stands now the law is unchanged, and a court will issue a monetary judgment when liability has been proved and damages documented. Parents caring for a child that suffered birth injuries may already feel overwhelmed. In many cases, a compassionate attorney can help a family prepare to take a case to court and seek justice for the child and his or her family.