Legal Articles and Guides

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.

South Africans studying medicine overseas have now turned to the courts in their battle to be allowed to write the medical board exam, which would allow them to practise locally. Durban-­based law firm Pravda and Knowles Attorneys has filed a notice of appeal in the Gauteng High Court to question the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) on this matter.

SA’s biggest class action lawsuit could take place if families of those who died and those hospitalised after contracting listeriosis decide to sue. ‘There is a possibility of a class action. Whoever is responsible could face class action‚’ consumer lawyer Janusz Luterek is quoted as saying in a BusinessLIVE report.

Low carb guru Tim Noakes is back at the Health Professions Council of SA for a tweet he posted four years ago advising a mother to wean her baby on to a LCHF diet (low carb‚ high fat). He won his hearing at the Health Professions Council after giving 12 days of evidence on why his diet for baby was not contradictory to evidence on what babies should eat and was found not guilty of misconduct or unethical conduct.

The mother of a baby who lost his arm due to alleged medical negligence at the Stanger Hospital is suing the KZN MEC of Health for R7m. The matter is set down for June, notes a Sunday Tribune report.

KZN’s Department of Health has received a judicial tongue-lashing, first for an ‘astounding’ lack of care given to a mother who gave birth to a brain-damaged baby, and then for wasting money by fighting her damages claim, says a News24 report. Acting Judge Sandhya Mahabeer, in a recent judgment, said it should have been obvious from the ‘joint minutes’ signed by medical experts representing the mother, Nokwanda Charlotte Mqadi, and the department that ‘the claim was indefensible’.