Legal Articles and Guides

Eleven hours of waiting and a total of four phone calls were needed before a gynaecologist attended to a mother in labour. A TimesLIVE report says the SCA has ordered the gynaecologist‚ Dr Abdool Samad Suliman‚ and Life Healthcare Group to pay R20m for their negligence after the baby was born with cerebral palsy at a KZN hospital in 2008. Suliman was ordered to pay 60% of the cost while Life Healthcare – owner of the Crompton Hospital in Pinetown – will pay 40%.

The Cape Town Magistrate’s Court heard yesterday that a proponent of allowing the terminally ill to die with dignity through the legalisation of euthanasia, Sean Davison – arrested and charged with one murder – may be charged with several more. A Cape Times report says born in New Zealand and known worldwide for helping his mother Pat (85) to die following her battle with cancer, Davison (57) was arrested this week and appeared in court on a charge of premeditated murder relating to the 2013 assisted suicide of Anrich Burger, who was left a quadriplegic after an accident in 2005.

A Potchefstroom doctor who is being probed after several patients died under his care has failed in an urgent application to have his suspension lifted, says a report in The Star. One of his alleged victims was a 12-month-old girl who suffered burns when a cup of boiling water fell on her.

A cancer survivor has emerged victorious against Alexander Forbes insurers who refused to pay her out for the dread disease after she was diagnosed with the illness for a second time. Judge Ron McLaren, ombudsman for long-term insurance, ordered the insurer to pay the woman for her second claim, saying in the absence of an exclusion clause 'there is no legal or insurance principle which prevents an insured person from claiming under two different policies for recurrence of a condition'.

Soaring payouts for medical negligence claims against the state pose such a threat to health-care provision that government is proposing a ‘new pay as you go’ system to compensate victims. A Financial Mail report notes that by the end of the 2016-2017 fiscal year, government faced contingent liabilities of R56.1bn. That equates to almost a third of the R170.9bn consolidated health budget for 2016-2017.

A battle between medical aid fund administrators and health professionals before the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has revealed cases of apparent cheating by doctors, and claims of racial bias by a black doctor. A Sunday Times report says the National Healthcare Professionals Association accused medical aid schemes of wrongfully withholding payments to its members, who say they are being bullied by the ‘vigilantism’ of medical aids.

Emigration and legal action are options already under consideration by doctors following last week’s publication of the National Health Insurance Bill and the Medical Schemes Amendment Bill, reports Legalbrief. Doctors believe they are being excluded from the NHI Bill process and are gearing for court action (see report below).

Residents of the Mmangweni rural village in the Eastern Cape, with the help of the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), have filed an application in the Eastern Cape High Court (Mthatha) seeking an order requiring the municipality to urgently deliver clean water to the community.

A total of 150 more families who lost loved ones in the Life Esidimeni tragedy or are related to survivors, have come forward with claims. A Times Select report says this could push the estimated R160m payout by the Gauteng provincial government to about R300m, although the new claimants are still being verified.

Parliament has been told that several SABC staffers – fingered for defrauding the public broadcaster’s medical aid scheme – will soon be prosecuted. The Mercury reports this is what the SABC told Parliament’s Committee on Communications yesterday.

A Bill aimed at protecting the state from soaring medical-negligence claims, which grew an average of 45% a year from 2012-13 to 2016-17, is seen by critics as prejudicing patients by limiting their choices and forcing them to seek care from the facilities that harmed them in the first place.

The Northern Cape Department of Health is facing a R48.9m medical negligence lawsuit after a child was born with severe brain damage at Manne Dipico Hospital in Colesberg. A report on the IoL site notes that the matter is before the Northern Cape High Court. In court papers it was stated that the child’s mother, Nonceba Rozette Mbatiwe Matiso, went into labour on 17 June 2014, where she was left in the maternity ward until 20 June, without undergoing any medical check-ups.

Cabinet has invoked section 100(1b) of the Constitution to take over the Department of Health in violence-torn North West, says a BusinessLIVE report. It has also mandated a ministerial task team to undertake a fact-finding mission to the province and report back in two weeks, Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane said.

A doctor head-hunted by the Health Department in the Eastern Cape to manage a turnaround at the Fort England Hospital in Grahamstown has been sitting at home for two years as unions allegedly are opposed to him working there, according to Rapport.

The rights of mentally ill patients and their families were flagrantly violated and disregarded during the Life Esidimeni debacle‚ retired Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke said in a scathing judgment yesterday. ‘All the facts here point to cruelty‚’ he said on the final day of arbitration hearings into the tragedy in which he said victims and their families had to be compensated.