Legal Articles and Guides

In what The Herald says is an unusual move, five judges of the SCA have asked Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize to intervene and urgently address the dire situation in the Eastern Cape’s public hospitals.

Some medical aids act like prosecutors and judges when investigating doctors for potential fraud – especially black doctors, the Council for Medical Schemes heard yesterday, according to Times Select.

Labour tenants and farm occupiers in the uMgungundlovu District Municipality have emerged victorious in a court battle to get water, sanitation and refuse collection services.

A Pretoria man could find himself behind bars if he continues to refuse to reinstate his estranged wife – whom he’s been in the process of divorcing since 2015 – on his medical aid. The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has given the man until next week to return the woman to his medical aid – failure to do so will result in him serving a 30-day jail term for contempt of court.

A letter of demand has been issued to the Department of Health to pay R7m in damages to the family of a patient at RK Khan Hospital who was found with thousands of maggots in his mouth.

A Durban attorney accused of ‘snatching’ his father (93) is under threat of going to jail for contempt of court – defying an order that he immediately return him to the retirement home where he was living.

A Phoenix mother wanting to have a baby was traumatised when she learnt one of her ovaries was missing. She claimed that her gynaecologist removed one of her ovaries without her approval during a surgical procedure a few years ago.

A group of 77 doctors who qualified overseas but wanted to practise locally have won a battle to write their board exams, via the Health Professions Council (HPCSA), according to News24.

Asylum seeker Alem Bazabe Ereselo – who was refused treatment at Helen Joseph Hospital – has managed to secure a draft order that will allow her to continue to receive the tri-weekly dialysis she requires to stay alive.

Lawyers for thousands of gold miners afflicted by silicosis or tuberculosis this week asked the Gauteng High Court to approve a R5bn settlement agreement, signed with five mining companies, as 'fair, reasonable and adequate'.

Limpopo's Health Department, already facing R4.3b in medical negligence claims, is now having to investigate a claim that a newborn's arm had been broken at birth at one of its hospitals, reports News24.

Moira Rodinis (85), who is going blind, is fighting her medical aid to be allowed access to a drug called Eylea that will reduce fluid build-up in her eyes, caused by age-related macular degeneration.

Alleged office gossip that an employee at a government entity was ‘infected with the HIV virus’ and spreading it because she was promiscuous forced her to institute a R2m defamation case against the ‘gossiper'. A report in The Star notes the parties are not named to safeguard the identity of the alleged victim.

The Health Professions Council (HPCSA) has suffered yet another defeat in its protracted battles with Dr Wouter Basson, according to Rapport. The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) dismissed the HPCSA’s application for leave to appeal a judgment ordering the recusal of two tribunal members who found him guilty of unethical conduct during the apartheid era in December 2013.

A Durban judge has ordered KZN Health MEC, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, to pay about R500 000 to a mother who sued for medical negligence after her son was born with ‘the worst case’ of cerebral palsy five years ago. Her son is paralysed, blind and possibly deaf, but the Department of Health refused to accept blame, notes a Sunday Times report.