When your child suffers from a disability due to a birth injury, the first concern of any parent will be with the health of the child. Are they going to be okay? How extensive is the damage? After processing all of that the parent will likely turn to the question: How am I going to pay for this? If your child was injured during the birthing process due to negligence of the hospital staff, then your best option for compensation is probably a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Assessing the Costs
Costs resulting from a birth injury can be astronomical. There are immediate medical bills that need to be paid, which can be incredibly pricey all on their own. Depending on the type of injury your child sustained, the costs could continue for years, if not forever.
Potential costs beyond medical bills to address immediate damage can include:
- Braces, wheelchairs, other mobility aids
- In-home nursing
- Renovations to your home to make it handicap accessible
- Adaptive technologies
- Extra travel expenses
- Experimental treatments
- Unexpected and unplannable
These costs are far beyond what most people can afford on their own, and many of them may continue throughout the life of your child. It’s important to get the financial compensation you need in order to pay for them all. When filing a medical malpractice lawsuit, you will need to project all of the costs above for your child, along with other consequential expenses.
It can be very difficult to figure out all of the consequential costs you’ll wrack up from a birth injury. You may have a loss of income if you are forced to quit your job to stay home with your child. You may have to pay for more childcare assistance to help out with other children you have.
Depending on the type of injury your child has suffered, you may need to lift your child a lot. As your child grows bigger, this may put a strain on you and eventually lead to the need for surgery for yourself.
There are so many costs of which you would never even think. Fortunately, if you hire a qualified birth injury lawyer with experience, they have seen all of these things over the years. As a result, they can do a lot better job of predicting how much all of these things are going to cost you in the end than you could do by yourself.
They will also include costs for pain and suffering in their projection. This will account for the life your child could have lived had they not been injured, the life you and your partner could have lived if your child didn’t need extra care, and the changes to the life of any other children you have.
Siblings of a disabled child often face unique challenges as they deal with parents who might have less time for them because they spend most of their time caring for their disabled child.
Hiring an Attorney
In order to get the compensation to which you and your child are entitled in a birth injury case, you will need to hire an experienced lawyer who can fight to get a birth injury compensation that offers affected families a chance to quality of life considerations. The cost of lost opportunities can’t be measured in money. It certainly can’t be measured in the itemized lines of a hospital bill.
While money will never be enough to make up for the pain and suffering of you and your child, not getting enough money from a settlement will only amplify that pain and suffering. When pursuing a lawsuit against a hospital for medical malpractice, do not try to represent yourself. Trying to determine an amount that represents fair compensation is incredibly difficult without prior knowledge in the field.
All parents want to provide their children with the best opportunities in life. Without fair compensation, you will not be able to afford treatment options that could greatly improve your child’s quality of life. A birth injury lawyer will make sure that you get the money you need to afford all of the best things in life for your child.