When you seek out the care of a medical professional, you want to know that they have your best interest at heart. It can be financially, emotionally, and physically devastating to discover that these professionals neglected an element of your health.
What behaviors, though, constitute medical malpractice in New Mexico? When can you take legal action against offending parties? You can collaborate with a personal injury attorney to assess the circumstances by which you came to injury and determine how, in turn, you can take action.
Understanding Medical Malpractice in New Mexico
At its core, medical malpractice is an exercise in negligence. Medical professionals can engage in malpractice through a variety of means. Professionals who fail to diagnose certain conditions endanger their patients and put your well-being at risk. Similarly, medical professionals who refuse to provide treatment to certain patients may open themselves up to lawsuits.
Even medical professionals who ignore you for days, months, or years at a time can be held liable for any injuries you sustained while allegedly under their care.
Assessing the Impact of Medical Negligence
To understand the full extent of the medical malpractice you may have contended with, you can reach out to a third-party professional. It can be scary to try to work with another medical professional after you have suffered from inappropriate treatment. Fortunately, you can collaborate with a personal injury attorney as well to ensure that you connect with someone who will take your health concerns seriously.
What a meeting with a third-party professional, you can discuss the conditions that you or a loved one are currently addressing. In turn, you can come to understand to what degree you have endured medical malpractice and what the consequences of that malpractice look like.
Taking Legal Action in the Face of Medical Malpractice
If it comes to light that you have endured medical malpractice at the hands of a practicing professional, you have the right to take legal action. However, it is not a medical professional specifically that you hold responsible for your losses.
Unless these parties operate as independent contractors or traveling nurses through their agency, you must take up legal action for medical malpractice against an institution.
Medical institutions offer their employees protection from several kinds of civil suits, including those addressing medical malpractice. As such, attempting to bring a suit against an individual will not be successful. Instead, you must target the party that accepts liability on that offending individual’s behalf.
New Mexico Institutes a Statute of Limitations on Medical Malpractice Cases
The time in which you have to act against medical malpractice is limited. These lawsuits can be classified as personal injury cases in New Mexico. As such, you must abide by the statute of limitations set forth for personal injury cases throughout the state.
N.M. Stat. Ann. § 37-1-8 limits the amount of time in which victims of medical malpractice must submit their case. Your actionable time is limited to two years. You do benefit from some flexibility, though. Medical malpractice victims’ submission deadline begins either on the day said negligence occurs or that the victim discovers the alleged negligence.
You can collaborate with a medical malpractice attorney in New Mexico to determine which of these deadlines best suits your case.
Understanding the Impact of Medical Malpractice on Your Future
Should you or a loved one find yourselves the victims of medical malpractice, you have legal recourse available to you. You can collaborate with a medical malpractice attorney in New Mexico to bring your losses to the attention of a civil judge. Together, you can advocate for your right to compensation based on the losses you endured.
At Dominguez Law, we have helped countless victims of medical malpractice, and we want to help you, too. We provide each of our clients’ cases with compassion, and we offer aggressive litigation services to help retrieve the compensation you deserve. To learn more about how we can help and to schedule a free consultation, give us a call at (505) 850-5854 or fill out our contact form.
We also speak Spanish.