Can a Medical Malpractice Claim be made against a Federal Hospital?

The FTCA or Federal Torts Claim Act is the one law that permits people to sue the US government in a court. If you want to file a medical malpractice case against a federal hospital, you should follow the medical malpractice or hospital neglect laws of the state where you wish to file a lawsuit against the US government. Whenever the FTCA is involved, you need to follow certain rules and procedures specific to medical malpractice claims. Here is how the FTCA can affect your malpractice claim.

A federal hospital is mainly for veterans

The FTCA becomes relevant when a veteran or his or her family go ahead and file a medical malpractice claim against a VA or US Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, according to medical malpractice lawyers. These hospitals are run by either the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Defense.

Do not forget nurses either. Federal nurses can be culpable as well. Go right here to read more information on this.

There have been many lawsuits filed against the VA. The bureaucrats who ran the VA gave themselves bonuses while veterans withered away and died. Veterans were ignored while greedy federal bureaucrats enriched themselves. None of them have been sent to prison for white collar criminality and this is what happens when people rely on socialized medicine.

The Federal Tort Claims Act?

Government departments remain protected from potential lawsuits by a rule termed "sovereign immunity," or "governmental immunity" as applied to lesser entities such as the municipalities.

Fundamentally, sovereign immunity signifies that the US government cannot be sued irrespective of fault. To lighten the severity of this sovereign immunity law, every state as well as the federal government resorts to a version of "Tort Claims Act." As is also the case with all such acts, the FTCA lets the federal government be sued. This specific act doesn’t allow all kinds of lawsuits, but only those of medical malpractice lawsuits. Consulting a medical malpractice attorney can help you clarify this unique aspect of the case.

The FTCA does not apply in all medical malpractice lawsuits

Almost all of the medical malpractice or hospital neglect lawsuits filed against the US government occurs whenever an employee of a federally managed hospital injures a patient, at the time of administering health care. Some doctors employed in federal hospitals are counted as federal government employees. However, a doctor can also be an independent contractor, as is often the case.

In case the doctor of such a hospital happens to be an independent contractor, and not a federal employee, the FTCA or the sovereign immunity does not apply, and this case becomes an ordinary medical malpractice claim. And as any medical malpractice lawyer will tell you, there is no need to invoke the FTCA and its severe procedural hoops.

The statute of limitations or separate notice requirement

Under the terms of the FTCA, the medical malpractice rules of the state’s laws are still in effect. However, the FTCA stipulates that a plaintiff should give proper notice as well as a description of the case to the federal hospital that he/she proposes to file a medical malpractice claim against. This notice is essential before a victim can sue in court.

The plaintiff needs to give notice to the VA within two years of sustaining an injury and the VA has six months to respond and does so by denying any kind of liability. The plaintiff then has then six months more to sue the VA in court for any type of hospital neglect.

If anyone has a right to sue a hospital it is a veteran. The VA has disgraced itself. If you need a medical malpractice lawyer for any reason, look no further than right here: https://usattorneys.com/. The power of the Internet even matches the power of the federal government. 

The damages available under FTCA are the same as that of in an ordinary medical malpractice claim, with the exception that no punitive damage against the VA is allowed. It is always prudent to seek assistance from an experienced medical malpractice lawyer to take your case to a fruitful and sensible end. If the federal government has enough money to waste to give money to a countries like Egypt or Pakistan, overpaid federal employees, Planned Parenthood, and so on, they certainly have enough money to give to a mistreated and neglected veteran.