No Extension Of Time Deadline To Sue: Patient Was Alert, Oriented.
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
August 2018
The hospital records describe the patient as awake, alert, oriented and able to provide a history and explain her symptoms when she was readmitted to the hospital four days after cardiac catheterization, two days after discharge. COURT OF APPEALS OF ARIZONA July 5, 2018
The eighty year-old patient’s visiting nurse had an ambulance take her back to the hospital from home due to pain, bleeding and swelling at the site of femoral artery access in the hospital four days earlier for cardiac catheterization. She had corrective surgery in the hospital, but only after a short stint in the ICU for cardiogenic shock.
The Court of Appeals of Arizona dismissed her lawsuit against the hospital for malpractice and lack of informed consent. The patient’s lawsuit was filed more than two years after her surgery, two years being the statute of limitations in Arizona to sue a medical provider for malpractice.
She was aware something may have gone wrong in the hospital right when she experienced complications at home a day or two after discharge. She also knew right then that potential complications were possible that were not explained to her that mitigated her informed consent to the catheterization procedure. The Court was not persuaded to extend the statute of limitations simply because she said she was not feeling well for several months after her readmission.
There was no solid evidence of a mental impairment that prevented her from understanding right away what happened. The hospital chart, the only real evidence, indicated she was fully alert and oriented at the time.
Kopacz v. Health, __ P. 3d __, 2018 WL 3297931 (Ariz. App., July 5, 2018).More references from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/statute-of-limitations-hospital.pdf