Learn the factors determining whether can you sue a mental health facility for negligence. Understand the duty of care, breach, causation, and damages in pursuing a legal claim. You can sue a mental health establishment for being careless. You might be able to sue a mental health facility for negligence if you think they didn’t give you the right care and it caused harm, injury, or made your condition worse. Like other healthcare providers, mental health facilities are required by law to deliver good care according to an accepted standard of care that is acceptable in the medical community. If they don’t do this and someone is hurt, they could be guilty of carelessness.
Reasons to Sue a Mental Health Facility for Not Doing Their Job
- Duty of Care
- Healthcare providers, particularly mental health facilities, must provide care meeting the sector’s standards. This duty comes with the employment because they are responsible for keeping patients’ mental and physical health safe.
- Breaking the Law
- It isn’t very careful when a facility doesn’t follow that duty of care. If the institution broke the obligation, it either did something it shouldn’t have done or didn’t do something it should have done. For example, a breach could happen if:
- The staff did not keep an eye on a suicidal patient as they should have. The patient’s medical history or condition was not properly examined before medications were given. The facility didn’t follow the right safety rules, which hurt a patient. Staff didn’t get enough training or supervision, which led to patients not getting the right care or being mistreated.
- Cause
- The next stage is to show that the neglect of duty directly contributed to the injury that the patient suffered after it was proven that it happened. For example, if a mental health facility didn’t adequately watch over a patient and that patient was hurt, the lack of supervision must be demonstrated to be the primary cause of the harm.
- Damages
- To win a negligence case, you must show that the breach of duty caused harm. That could be bodily or mental suffering, extra medical bills, or any other bad thing that happened because of the neglect.
Different kinds of negligence in mental health facilities
A mental health facility can be careless in several ways. Here are a few examples:
- Not enough supervision
- People with mental illnesses, especially those with serious ones like depression, psychosis, or suicidal thoughts, need to be watched all the time. Not giving enough supervision, especially to patients who are at high risk, can result in injury, self-harm, or death. For instance, if a patient at a psychiatric institution hurts themself because staff weren’t watching them, the hospital could be sued for carelessness.
- Wrong Diagnosis or Treatment
- Another reason for neglect is when a mental health illness is misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all. A doctor who doesn’t diagnose might give a patient the wrong treatment or drug. That could worsen symptoms, cause side effects, or even cause medications to interact in dangerous ways. It could be held responsible if a facility doesn’t follow the right diagnostic methods or treatment plans.
- Not following rules or procedures
- To keep patients safe, mental health facilities/mental health facility have specific rules and procedures that must be followed. For instance, restraints or isolation are occasionally used in psychiatric settings, but they must be utilized in a way that is legal and moral. If these rules are broken and the patient is physically or emotionally hurt, the facility may be judged negligent.
- Staff that isn’t well-trained or there aren’t enough
- Employees at a mental health facility can also be negligent if they aren’t trained well enough or don’t have enough staff to satisfy the needs of their patients. If staff personnel don’t know how to handle some mental health emergencies, they may make things worse for the patient. For example, if a nurse doesn’t know how to see the indicators of an acute psychiatric episode because they weren’t trained, the patient’s condition could get worse for no reason.
What to Do if You Want to Sue for Negligence
If you think that a mental health facility has been careless in your case or the situation of a loved one, there are several actions you can take to take legal action:
- Write down everything
- Start by writing down all the important information about the scenario. It includes medical records, notes on your treatment, conversations with personnel, and any other information that can help your case. Your case will be stronger the more proof you have.
- Talk to a lawyer
- Talking to a lawyer is very important when you want to file a negligence claim. If you have a case of medical malpractice or carelessness, a lawyer specializing in these areas can look at it and decide if you have a case. They can also help you with the steps, such as collecting evidence, filing the complaint, and going to court.
- Get Testimony from an Expert
- You may need expert testimony to back up your case when suing someone for medical malpractice or carelessness. People who work in mental health facility but aren’t involved in the case may be able to testify about the standard of treatment that should have been followed. These specialists can help determine if the facility’s actions (or lack thereof) were below the expected care level.
- Make a Complaint
- Before you can sue a mental health facility for being careless, you may have to formally complain to the facility, the medical board, or the other regulatory body. This complaint will let the facility know what you’re worried about and offer the offer them a chance to react.
- Go to court
- The next step is to launch a lawsuit if informal complaints or negotiations don’t lead to a good settlement. Your lawyer will help you write a complaint that lists your claims, such as breach of duty, causation, and damages. After that, the court will look over the case and may hold a trial.
Possible Ways to Fight Negligence Claims
Even if you have a good case, you should know what defenses a mental health hospital might use:
- The standard of care was met.
- The facility can say that they followed the right standard of care and that what they did was reasonable. They may not be responsible if they can show that they followed the rules and processes that are generally accepted.
- Negligence that contributed
- In other circumstances, the facility might say that the patient hurt themselves by what they did. For instance, if the patient chose not to follow therapy or left a monitored area, the hospital might say that the patient’s actions were partly to blame for what happened.
- No Cause
- The defense can say that the facility’s acts or negligence didn’t directly cause the injury to the patient. This defense tries to show that the breach of duty and the harm done are not connected.
- Time limit for filing
- Another possible argument is that the statute of limitations has run out. You must submit a negligence claim in many places within a certain time. The mental health facility may say that the case is time-barred if too much time has passed since the event in question.
In conclusion
You can sue a mental health facility for negligence, but it’s not easy and can be very hard. Like other healthcare professionals, mental health practitioners must do their job. Employees at a mental health facility can also be negligent if they don’t do their job, and if someone gets hurt, they may need to go to court. But if you want to file a negligence claim, you need to have a lot of paperwork, an expert witness, and the help of a lawyer who has done this before. If you think that a mental health facility’s carelessness has hurt you or a loved one, it’s very important to take the right legal actions to make sure that the people who are responsible are punished.