Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital Malpractice Lawyer

Trial-Ready Hospital Negligence Attorneys for Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital Patients and Families

The Types of Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital Lawsuits Our Hospital Malpractice Attorneys Handle

Hastings Law Firm handles Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital lawsuits in Tucson, Arizona, over heart and vascular procedure errors, heart attacks missed in the emergency center, and delayed stroke care. Our hospital malpractice lawyers pursue these claims against the hospital, its staff, and the physicians and groups who treat patients there. We build each one from the procedure notes, monitoring records, and emergency charting.

The cases we see most often at a heart and vascular hospital like Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital include:

• Heart and vascular procedure errors. A catheterization, heart operation or vascular surgery can injure a patient instead of repairing the problem, and a complication that goes unrecognized can deepen that injury. The harm can mean further procedures, lasting damage to the heart or blood vessels, or the loss of a family member. Our Arizona cardiothoracic surgeon malpractice lawyers compare the procedure notes against the monitoring and recovery records to find the point where care broke down.
• Heart attacks missed or treated late in the emergency center. Chest pain, test results or other signs of a heart attack can be misread, or treatment can begin later than the patient’s condition required. That delay can leave permanent damage to the heart or cost a patient their life. In a heart attack misdiagnosis claim in Arizona, we rebuild the hours in the emergency center from the triage notes, the test results and every order that followed.
• Stroke care that comes too late. The warning signs of a stroke can go unrecognized, or treatment can stall after the signs are noticed. A patient can be left with lasting problems with movement, speech or memory, and a family can face months of care and therapy. Our Arizona stroke misdiagnosis attorneys trace the timing of each assessment, scan and treatment decision.

While these are common claim types, our hospital malpractice attorneys handle any valid medical negligence case that arises at this hospital.

About Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital on St. Mary’s Road in Tucson

Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital is a Carondelet Health Network hospital at 1601 West St. Mary’s Road in Tucson, Arizona, in Pima County. The state licenses it for several hundred beds. It provides emergency, heart and vascular, stroke, surgical and inpatient rehabilitation care.

Carondelet describes the network as owned by a joint venture in which Tenet Healthcare is the majority partner and manages operations, while Dignity Health and Ascension hold minority interests. Carondelet St. Joseph’s Hospital is the network’s other Tucson hospital, and Tucson Medical Center is another hospital in the city. In Phoenix, Abrazo Arizona Heart Hospital belongs to the Abrazo Community Health Network, which is part of Tenet Healthcare.

St. Mary’s runs an all-private-bed Emergency Center, and its emergency services are open around the clock. Carondelet’s own pages call the hospital a Designated Cardiac Receiving Center by the Arizona Department of Health Services and a Designated Cardiac Arrest Center.

The Carondelet Heart & Vascular Institute is based at St. Mary’s, with minimally invasive heart and vascular surgery, catheterization labs, hybrid operating suites and an electrophysiology program. According to the institute, its vascular services include aneurysm repair, carotid artery surgery and stenting, and treatment for peripheral artery disease.

The hospital holds Primary Stroke Center Certification from DNV. Its inpatient rehabilitation program serves patients recovering from stroke, brain injury, spinal cord conditions, amputation, hip fractures, heart and lung conditions, and complications after surgery. Those programs hold Disease-Specific Stroke Rehabilitation Certification from The Joint Commission.

Surgical care at the campus includes specialized orthopedic surgery, general surgery and surgical weight loss, and patients who need it receive inpatient dialysis. St. Mary’s also houses an outpatient Wound Healing Center with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Its behavioral health program, run in partnership with El Rio Health, includes acute crisis psychiatric care.

Can You File a Lawsuit Against Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital, the Doctor, or Both?

You may be able to file a lawsuit against Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital, the treating doctor, or both, depending on who caused the harm. Under Kopp v. Physician Group of Arizona, the hospital answers for mistakes by the staff it actually employs, made within the scope of their jobs. The hospital also answers for its own conduct, and each doctor is accountable for their own care.

Which organization employed each provider is written into the medical records, and it decides who is named as a defendant. A lawyer to sue a hospital starts by matching every provider in the chart to the right employer. Our Tucson hospital malpractice lawyers do that work on every hospital claim we accept.

Early in a case against a health care provider, Arizona requires a preliminary expert opinion affidavit under A.R.S. 12-2603. That sworn statement from a qualified medical expert sets out the facts, the way the care departed from the standard, and how the departure caused the injury. Without a required affidavit, the claim can be dismissed.

Under A.R.S. 12-563, the claim must then prove two elements. The provider did not use the care, skill and learning expected of a reasonable, prudent provider in the same field. That failure was also a proximate cause of the injury, which means it directly led to the harm.

Is Carondelet St. Mary’s Responsible in Arizona for a Doctor Who Is Not Its Employee?

Carondelet St. Mary’s can be responsible in Arizona for a doctor who is not its employee when the hospital controls that doctor’s work. An Arizona appeals court reached that result in Beeck v. Tucson General Hospital, for a radiologist the hospital chose and whose standards of performance it had the right to control.

Carondelet states that physicians are independent contractors who are neither its employees nor its agents. That statement is the network’s own description, and it does not decide how the law treats a particular doctor.

A patient in the Heart & Vascular Institute or the Emergency Center can meet several physicians in a single visit. Some may practice with Carondelet Medical Group, the network’s physician practice, and others with practices of their own. Arizona law looks past those affiliations to how each doctor actually worked.

A hospital answers for the nurses, technicians and other staff it actually employs when they make mistakes within the scope of their jobs. The Beeck ruling carries that same responsibility to a doctor labelled an independent contractor whose work the hospital controls.

A hospital can also be bound when its own conduct led a patient to reasonably believe a doctor worked for it, a rule known as apparent agency. That rule depends on what the hospital told the patient and whether the patient reasonably relied on it. A properly disclosed, signed independent-contractor consent form can defeat it.

The label on a website does not settle any of these questions, because the facts of the patient’s care do. In a Carondelet St. Mary’s lawsuit, our hospital malpractice attorneys look at who chose the doctor, who controlled the work, and what the patient was told. Whatever the answer about the hospital, the doctor stays responsible for their own care.

How We Work With Injured Carondelet St. Mary’s Patients and Their Families

Hastings Law Firm represents Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital patients and families in Tucson, Arizona, in malpractice claims from the first phone call through a settlement or verdict. Our attorneys and medical professionals take each stage of the claim off the family’s hands, from gathering the records to preparing for trial.

A member of our intake team answers when you call about harm at Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital. If the patient cannot phone us, a spouse, parent or grown child may call in their place. Describe the care, the part of the hospital where it happened, and any providers you remember, because your account starts our review. Our team works to make sure you are heard.

Gathering the complete medical records is our job, and we request them for you. Our attorneys and medical professionals work through the Emergency Center notes and the catheterization, operative and rehabilitation records to pin down each decision, who made it, and when. When our hospital negligence lawyers accept a case, we build it on that evidence and on independent physicians who can explain it.

Once you retain us, the hospital, its insurers and its lawyers speak to our attorneys instead of to you. Our board-certified patient advocates stay in contact with you and put each development into plain language when it happens. Our Tucson medical malpractice lawyers seek a settlement that covers the full cost of the injury to your family. If no fair offer comes, we are prepared to take your case to a jury.

If You or a Loved One Were Injured at Carondelet St. Mary’s, Speak With Our Medical Attorneys Today

Hastings Law Firm handles hospital malpractice claims in Tucson, Arizona, for patients and families whose treatment at Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital left them worse off. Our hospital negligence lawyers go over what happened and explain whether the hospital, a physician, or both may be responsible.

Our team is here for you. We perform a free case review to find out whether you have a valid claim, and what you tell us is kept confidential. There is no fee unless we win. Let us help you find the answers you deserve.