Healthcare practitioners are meant to safeguard patients’ health. At least, that is the major content of their oath. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case as some patients sustain an injury during treatment while the unlucky ones lose their lives.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 raised the alarm while calling for urgent action to reduce patient harm in healthcare. The United Nations (UN) specialized agency stated that medical malpractice results in 2.6 million deaths annually.
“Most of these deaths are avoidable. The personal, social and economic impact of patient harm leads to losses of trillions of US dollars worldwide,” the body said in its statement.
Due to the growing rate of medical errors and malpractice, scientists at Johns Hopkins in 2016 proposed it should rank as the third leading cause of death in the U.S., a position only behind heart disease and cancer, respectively.
Medical malpractice is any act by a health care provider that causes an injury or death of a patient. It is a suable offence and is considered a subset of tort law (Tort, the Norman word for “wrong”, creates remedies for civil wrongs).
According to Sbrogna, Brunelle & Donius, LLP, a firm with competent medical malpractice lawyers, “medical malpractice is established when two criteria are met: a health care provider must have violated a professional standard of care, and an injury must have occurred as a result of the professional’s action. The injury must also have damaging consequences.”
Types of medical error and malpractice that can lead to a lawsuit are:
- Misdiagnosis
- Over prescription
- Poor aftercare
- Unnecessary surgery
- Premature discharge
- Failure to order appropriate tests or to act on results
- Prescribing the wrong dosage or the wrong medication
- Leaving things inside the patient’s body after surgery
- Operating on the wrong part of the body
- Hospital fire
- Potentially fatal infections acquired in the hospital
- Poor health management
- Patient’s suicide
Over the years, a lot of patients have sued health facilities over malpractice, and they were awarded damages by the court. Some hospitals, due to the bad publicity, opted for out-of-court settlements.
Celebrity cases
Sbrogna, Brunelle & Donius, LLP highlight famous celebrities’ medical malpractice cases and settlements, in order to illustrate how incidents can impact on anyone. These cases include Dana Carvey, who is a popular stand-up comedian and actor known for his role on Saturday Night Live.
Carvey, in 1997 had heart surgery only to discover two months later that his surgeon had bypassed the wrong artery during the operation. The screenwriter was unable to work for several years due to the injury sustained during the surgery. Carvey won the malpractice case against the hospital and was awarded $7.5 million.
In another example, Hollywood actor Dennis William Quaid and his wife Kimberly gave birth to twin babies in November 2007. The twins developed an infection, after which they were treated.
The hospital mistakenly administered adult doses for the newborns, hence an overdose. Despite calls to check on their babies’ health, the hospital tried to cover up the development. They later discovered this, and fortunately, the twins survived.
The death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, in 2009 took the world by surprise. Investigation into his treatment revealed that the singer’s death resulted from an overdose of potent sleeping drugs. Jackson’s personal physician was in 2011 found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He lost his medical license and was sentenced to four years imprisonment.
Popular wrestler, Hulk Hogan, in 2013 sued an Institute for worsening his back pain problem.
Hogan had visited the institute to have a traditional surgery to ameliorate the back pain, but according to him, the result was opposite. He was unable to work for about two years.
Argentine legendary soccer player, Diego Maradona, was pronounced dead on November 25, 2020. He was reported to have died of heart failure and pulmonary edema. Rather than being in a hospital, Maradona was recuperating at home in the suburbs of Buenos Aires after brain surgery. Following his death, doctors, nurses and other medical staff who had him in their care were charged with homicide. Prosecutors said the health practitioners should have known that he was at risk and done more to save him.
