In a case which highlighted the growing burden of medical negligence payouts on state entities, the Gauteng Health Department didn’t help its cause when it failed to bring any evidence to the Constitutional Court on why the court should change the law to allow it to pay court-ordered awards monthly rather than a lump sum. Instead of paying R23m owed to a woman (DZ) for the medical care of her brain-damaged son‚ the department argued in the High Court, SCA and Constitutional Courts that negligence law needs to be changed to allow monthly payments.

The department pointed out during argument that large negligence payouts were unreasonable as the patients affected usually use public hospitals‚ but are claiming huge amounts of money for a lifetime of private medical treatment. According to a TimesLIVE report, the Constitutional Court said the ‘legal issue’ of whether negligence payouts affect the financial sustainability of the health system was ‘important’.

But the case was lost because the department did not support its claims that it struggled to afford paying the claims.

Justice Johan Froneman said: ‘In the High Court‚ the Gauteng MEC elected not to lead any evidence on the damages issue.’

The department also lost its argument that the public sector could be used to care for injured patients‚ because it did not ‘present any evidence their claims for future medical expenses (in the private sector) were not reasonable’. The Constitutional Court noted that if a similar case about negligence costs affecting the health system's budget needs to be argued‚ evidence will need to be provided to back such a claim.

Full TimesLIVE report

MEC, Health and Social Development, Gauteng v DZ