For Texans and people across the nation, being subjected to misdiagnosed cancer can lead to disaster. This is particularly egregious if it is a military veteran who is victimized by a misdiagnosis or a failure to diagnose and it leads to delayed treatment and even death. Those who are affected by this type of mistake and became sicker and families who lost a loved one need to be fully aware of their rights to a full investigation and to seek compensation for what occurred.
A woman in Florida is seeking answers after her husband received a misdiagnosis and then, after receiving the accurate diagnosis, was told there was no urgency to receive treatment. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs gave the woman’s husband, a veteran of more than three decades in the Navy, the inaccurate diagnosis in spite of the knowledge that he had been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam and to toxic water in Camp Lejeune.The man went to the doctor after seeing blood in his urine in June of 2016. The doctor diagnosed a kidney stone and gave him antibiotics. The bleeding, however, persisted. In August, he received a diagnosis of kidney cancer and was told the kidney needed to be removed. The man’s wife wanted the surgery to be done sooner rather than later, but the doctors said there was no need to rush. The kidney was never removed because the cancer spread to the man’s lymph nodes. He was subsequently told to have chemotherapy, but he never did as he died. His wife has the records indicating that the V.A. was aware that the cancer was at stage four, but did not tell the man and his wife. The cancer continued to spread, affected his bones causing breaks, and he died in November.
Issues with the V.A. have become a hot topic in today’s political climate with the number of veterans asserting that they have not receive the proper treatment continues to grow. Those who have served the country deserve to have accurate diagnoses and timely treatment. When they do not get it and have worsened condition and even death as a result of a failure to diagnose cancer, it is important to know how to move forward with a legal filing for compensation. It is particularly important with cancer that the patient’s history and past exposures are known. So too is it important to get the patient into treatment as soon as possible. Since none of that was done with this man, speaking to an attorney can help with accruing evidence and filing a case.
Source: wfla.com, “Target 8: Pasco widow claims V.A. misdiagnosis and delays killed husband,” March 3, 2017
