Welcome and thank you for joining me. I am Gerry Oginski a New York Medical Malpractice and Personal Injury Trail Lawyer practicing law here in the State of New York. Today's video tip is specifically for patients who have gone to the following hospitals, Jacobi Hospital, Bellevue Hospital, Queens General hospital, Woodhull hospital, Elmhurst hospital, Kings County hospital, Coney Island hospital, why these hospitals? These are municipal hospitals that are owned by an entity known as New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.
It is very important that if you think you have been a victim of medical wrong doing at any of these hospitals that you must file a notice of claim against the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation within 90 days from the date of the malpractice that is very important. And you'll also need to know that in order to start a lawsuit you must file a lawsuit within a year in 90 days from the date of the malpractice.
Now what happens in the event you do not file a notice of claim. By the way a notice of claim is a piece of paper setting forth what you believe are the allegations and the alleged wrong doing indicating the time, the date, and place and the manner in which your injuries came about. And that piece of paper must be served on the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation in a specific way.
If you do not file your notice of claim, in all likelihood you are going to have a severe and significant obstacles in bringing a lawsuit against anyone of those hospitals. Now it's also important to keep in mind that the time limit that I am just giving you is a general statement for filing a notice of claim and also a lawsuit. There are very specific exceptions including exceptions for children. However, what you should keep in mind is that you should never ever rely fully on a video tip, my own, or anybody else's you have seen online.
What you need to do is to speak to an attorney specifically about your particular matter so that an attorney can make an intelligent decision about whether your claim is timely, and in all likelihood the attorney will want to review your particular medical records to make a definite decisions as to whether or not you have a timely claim.
Now what happens if you don't bring a claim within the time frame that's indicated. An attorney can ask for special permission to file a late claim but that's a very involved and lengthy procedure and only done in certain specific cases. Even when it is done it does not guarantee that your claim would be allowed, because it's filed late. There are specific reasons that will be allowed and some that are not going to be allowed. You also need to know that once you file your notice of claim, within a few months r after that you are going to be asked to appear for a hearings so that an attorney for the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation can question you. At a hearing it's known as a 50H hearing in New York City, where they will find out what it is happened to you and what injuries you suffered as a result of this wrong doing.
Once that hearing has been held you must wait 30 days in order to allow the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation time to resolve or settle your matter before you are allowed or permitted to start your lawsuit.
Now again the best thing I can tell you from a general standpoint is that if you have any concerns and you think that you are a victim of wrong doing as a result of treatment you received at anyone of those hospitals, Jacobi, Bellevue, Kings County hospital, Coney Island hospital, Elmhurst hospital and the other that I mentioned, you should call an experienced medical malpractice attorney immediately so that you can protect your rights, because you don't want to be either close to the time limit, your attorney may not have sufficient time to get your records and to do the necessary steps to protect your rights, or you don't want that time frame to have lapsed, so that now it's too late for you to do anything.
So that's why please call an attorney immediately so that you can find out the answers to your questions. And that's it for today's video tip, I want to thank you for joining me. I am Gerry Oginski, have a great day.
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