Am I a bad person?

[Adviceline20]

My nan passed away recently. I was left to deal with all the admin and pay for her funeral. Her direct relatives are me and my 2 siblings. I recently discovered the hospital was neglectful in her care and I could make a claim for compensation. If I make the claim and we are successful the compensation automatically gets divided by the three grandchildren. The relationship between us is fraught. I was the only person to ever act I my grandmothers best interests, the other 2 used her financially and caused a lot of upset in the family. I am considering not making the claim just so those 2 don’t receive any compensation (neither of them would initiate a claim but would be willing to accept the money should I go through with it and put all the effort in). Does it make me a bad person? because I am willing to forgo the compo to ensure my 2 siblings don’t profit? I can’t stand the thought of them financially benefiting from this, I don’t know what to do!

@Mlou32 Are you aware that an estimated 237 million+ medication errors occur in the NHS every year and that avoidable adverse drug reactions cause some 700+ deaths per year and could be a contributory factor to between 1,700 and 22,300 deaths a year?

These deaths are due to medication errors and take no account of deaths caused by other medical errors and negligence.

Imo 'Death by hospital' and 'Death by doctor' should be categories that can be recorded as the cause on death certificates.

You paid for her funeral, so I'm guessing that you would be reimbursed for those outgoing payments before your siblings had any claim whatsoever to any compensation that you may receive.

Speak to a lawyer and run your numbers before making a decision.

I’m torn on this. I do think that there are reasons to take legal action against trusts, care facilities etc in order to bring negligent practices to light and hopefully to change the system.

I also think that where e.g. a person becomes severely disabled or compromised then compensation is often a means for that person to live the best life and afford the best support they can in the circumstances.

But when it is a family member who is suing I do think that they should ask themselves what the compensation is actually for. The OP’s grandmother has died. Apart from the funeral costs what is compensation going to mean to the OP? No amount of money will bring the grandmother back, and I do think in those circumstances it becomes about someone benefiting from someone’s death and that doesn’t sit comfortably with me, although I would never go so far as to accuse someone like that of being a money grabber.

Compensation is often given as part of the settlement and I’m not sure it would be possible to say “take the legal action but I don’t want compensating ta very much.” but personally I think that changes are the most important and as such I would personally give any compensation to charity.