Can the hospital or the doctor be sued for treating the wrong patient?

It is possible, that after admittance and medical diagnosis, hospital records may be mixed up during patient transfers between different treatment areas of the hospital. If a patient undergoes an unnecessary surgery, or worse, amputation, due to the mistake, then hospital negligence has likely occurred and the injured patient, or in some cases both patients may file a lawsuit against the hospital for medical malpractice.

In order to have a meritorious medical malpractice case, the hospital negligence must have directly contributed to some type of patient damages, or injury. In this type of case, any harm done to the patient due to a mix up of hospital records can be remedied by demanding compensation through a medical negligence lawsuit. In order to establish the medical negligence and resulting damages, a medical malpractice lawyer should be consulted, and he or she will have an expert medical witness identify exactly how the negligence happened and how it caused the patient to suffer unnecessary injury.