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Patient Falls In Parking Lot: Not Receiving Medical Care At The Time.
When the nurse tried to help the individual out of her car in the emergency department parking lot, the assessment and care of the individual as a hospital patient had not yet begun. The nurse’s conduct involves ordinary negligence, as opposed to professional negligence, for which the law provides a longer statute of limitations.
COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO September 29, 2017The patient arrived in the emergency department parking lot as a passenger in her own car which a friend was driving. A nurse came out from the emergency department to help her out of the car into a hospital wheelchair. During the transfer the patient fell and was injured.
More than a year after the incident the patient sued the hospital for negligence. The Court of Appeals of Ohio let the case proceed even though the one-year statute of limitations for medical negligence had expired before the suit was filed. The statute of limitations for ordinary negligence was still running when it was filed.
The Court said that the process of providing professional assessment and care for the patient did not begin until the patient entered the emergency department door. In fact, the nurse had made no attempt to get a history or otherwise to evaluate the patient before he tried to help her out of the car into the wheelchair. The Court said medical negligence would be involved when a patient already undergoing treatment is transferred to bed or to a wheelchair, after a competent assessment of the patient’s mobility issues had been or should have been completed.
Christian v. Med. Ctr., __ N.E. 3d __, 2017 WL 4334164 (Ohio App., September 29, 2017).