Legal Articles and Guides

Two more Jehovah's Witness families have been taken to the KZN High Court (Durban) to force them to allow doctors to administer lifesaving blood to their seriously ill children. The two matters were added to the court's roll as a third set of parents planned to defend their refusal to allow their five-year-old son, who suffers from sickle cell anaemia, to receive blood transfusions, notes TimesLIVE.

While child abuse should not be tolerated, the ‘reasonable and moderate chastisement’ of children as a form of physical discipline by their parents should be allowed, the Constitutional Court heard yesterday, according to a News24 report. This was the case put forward by Freedom of Religion SA (FOR SA), which has taken a judgment striking down this form of chastisement as a defence in criminal cases, on appeal.

A medical doctor's fight to get the Government Employees Medical Scheme (Gems) to pay for his cancer treatment has ended in victory after the company agreed to cover it, reports SowetanLIVE. Gems reviewed Dr Sipho Bvuma's application for it to pay for an expensive drug called Keytruda to treat his stage four cancer.

Philip Morris International – one of the biggest tobacco companies in the world – sees SA’s mooted tobacco regulations as an impediment to its plan to phase out its cigarette brands in favour of healthier alternatives. According to a Business Day report, the company wants to ultimately replace all its cigarettes with products that do not produce harmful smoke, such as e-cigarettes and its new iQOS range of devices, that heat instead of burn tobacco.

Gerald Cloete (42) – whose arm was ripped off when he was mauled by dogs in Rowallan Park – has received an exoneration in the Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth), with the judge holding the owner of the animals liable for the damages suffered.

The battle by companies to profit from social grants rages on with another round of court action, this time between Sassa and another Net1 subsidiary, which will be heard today. According to a Mail & Guardian Online report, the Net 1 subsidiary, Moneyline Financial Services, is asking the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) to compel Sassa to accept the consent forms – confirming bank accounts into which the social grants should be paid – of beneficiaries through Cash Paymaster Services (CPS).

Discovery Health (Pty) Ltd may turn to litigation after the Final Board of Appeals of the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) banned two of its medical insurance products, says Rapport. The appeals board ordered Discovery to cease its coverage of about 30 000 people on its Comprehensive Primary Care and Essential Primary Care products, as it did for Agility Insurance Administrators for similar products.

The life of a five-year-old Durban boy has been saved after his paediatrician went to court to approve a life-saving blood transfusion for him in defiance of his parents' religious beliefs. An urgent interim order was granted a month ago to allow the boy, who suffers from sickle cell anaemia, to receive blood transfusions as and when necessary, says a Sunday Times report.

A study of 122 nursing malpractice cases has raised red flags about the number of civil claims at private hospitals that are quietly settled in SA. Civil claims settlements due to nursing malpractice are a growing problem, according to Professor Ethelwynn Stellenberg from Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

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.