Nursing care in catastrophic cases: What is it? What is the benefit to the individual and family members? And the importance of obtaining a professional report.
Nursing care in catastrophic injury cases plays a crucial role in the overall management and support of patients who have suffered severe and life changing injuries. These injuries can result from accidents, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, severe burns, multiple fractures or amputations. The primary goal of nursing care in such cases is to provide comprehensive and compassionate support to promote the patient’s physical, emotional, and psychological wellbeing.
Here at McMahon Goldrick Solicitors each one of our catastrophic injury cases will have a nursing report prepared on behalf of the client. The nursing expert will have met with the client and will also have examined all of the client’s medical reports. They will then base the nursing report on these factors. The nursing report will set out the care that the client requires, consisting of retrospective care and future care. Retrospective care is the care from the date of the accident to the date of the hearing of the case. Future care is all care that the client will require from the conclusion of the case into the future.
The importance of obtaining a professional report
It is extremely important that a skilled nursing professional prepares the report. It is significant for them to detail the extra care that will be required into the future and as the client grows older. The cost of the care will be included in the claim that is brought for and on behalf of the client. The report will be a guide to the court. The report will also be a guide to the individual and the family members as to what might be expected post the accident and indeed post the conclusion of the case.
When the nursing care is calculated in a catastrophic case, it is usually a very significant capital sum. When an actuary comes to calculate the future care it should be noted that the computation will take into account the extraordinarily high inflation that exists when it comes to medical and nursing care.
In an ideal world, a case manager would be appointed and would oversee the funds received in respect of nursing care and coordinate the care that the client requires to receive post the case. Indeed, this is the situation in other jurisdictions. In this country, what is inclined to happen is that the client will endeavour to retain such care hours (as opposed to nursing care) that has been allocated to him/her by the local health board and use any funds received for the nursing care simply to look after his/her general welfare into the future. This is an understandable position and is even more understandable when the system here in Ireland does not insist on settlements breaking down each part of the settlement sum so that it could be clearly seen as to precisely how much was recovered for nursing care. We understand that clients are concerned as to whether they will have enough money to see them through to the end of their days. A word of caution, the care hours that a client might receive from the local health office are not guaranteed to be retained on the conclusion of a case and after the client received a generous settlement.
At McMahon Goldrick Solicitors we retain an exceptional nursing expert who carefully costs the retrospective care and the future care, for inclusion in the case. For further details in relation to this issue please contact me, Ralph McMahon, or one of my colleagues on 01-6770044 or info@rmcm.ie. Our address is The Grafton Buildings, 34 Grafton Street, Dublin 2.
