Malpractice question
This is a question regarding my mother and her situation. 10 years ago she was diagnosed with lung cancer and it had metastasized to other organs. It was a 50/50 chance. After 6 years she beat it. I'm saying this to establish that she had very frequent interactions with health professionals.
2 years ago she lost consciousness while driving and had a bad accident. It wasn't high speed, so no one was severely injured, but my mom was still unresponsive and they assumed it was because of the accident, fairly. I spoke to her on the phone about 5 hours later and she reassured me she felt fine, just tired, she didn't know why. She was totally normal sounding. Tests had been done and x-rays showed what appeared to be blood clots in her lungs. She also has a condition that causes her blood to be thicker than usual. The doctors chose to give her blood thinners, they assumed this is why she had originally lost consciousness. Some time in the next 2 days of her hospital stay she had a massive stroke, almost died and is now barely able to do anything.
The choice to give blood thinners seems problematic for sure. There is more yet though. They seemed to not understand why this happened so a lot of test were done in the following weeks. What was determined was my mom had a hole in her heart, that she was born with, and is fairly common but usually immediately treated. She had lived 64 years without it being discovered. This hole was causing blood to leak into her lungs and that is why she had developed blood clots. Now due to her previous cancer, she was taking health very seriously and regularly saw many doctors. One of whom is a cardiac specialist. She had seen him for about 3 years before the accident happened and he didn't catch the hole in the heart.
To me, it seems like a lot of poor choices were made and negligence has happened. Discussing the situation with her GP, he also said it was strange that the cardiac specialist missed the hole. And then quickly backtracked. I know nothing about law or medical malpractice though. Is there something to pursue here or is my mom simply a victim of very bad luck? Sorry for the long post. Thanks for any advice.