Victims of medical errors sometimes have to wait years for compensation, even when a hospital has accepted responsibility.
It can sometimes take years for a claim to be dealt with, reports Dutch daily de Volkskrant. Professors, lawyers and victims say health insurance companies are mainly to blame for the delay.
Dutch Civil Law Professor Lodewijk Smeehuijzen told the paper that health insurance companies are less flexible and slower in settling cases than ordinary insurance companies dealing with road traffic victims: “You would have thought that when a doctor has made an error, the damages would be dealt with prudently. But ironically, these cases take longer.”
According to the paper the slow procedures cause great distress to the victims, which they describe as "the disaster after the disaster".
© Radio Netherlands Worldwide
Medical error victims
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