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Medico-Legal
Medico-legal claims drop, but state's huge burden remains
While payouts for medical negligence claims against the state have dropped over the past few years, billions of rands are still being paid out...
KZN doctor charged for sexual assaults on patients
A doctor accused of sexually assaulting four patients over a period of several months has been arrested in Madadeni, near Newcastle, and will appear...
Purdue whacked with $5.5bn sentence, clears path for settlement
A New Jersey court sentenced OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to $5.5bn in fines and penalties stemming from its 2020 guilty plea to charges of deceiving government regulators and paying kickbacks...
Crunch-time for cancer Roundup weed killer cases
Judges in a US Supreme Court are wrestling this week with whether federal law pre-empts them – and juries – from weighing claims from...
Surgeon on manslaughter charge for removing wrong organ
A US grand jury had indicted Florida surgeon Thomas Shaknovsky (44) on a second-degree manslaughter charge for allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of...
Disgraced former UCLA OB-GYN resentenced to 11 years
A Los Angeles doctor, James Heaps, has been sentenced again to 11 years in prison for sexual and other offences after a retrial, reports...
Ballooning malpractice claims needs alternative approach
Escalating medical malpractice claims against the state – nearly R2bn in 2020/21 – risk collapsing the struggling public healthcare system, and alternatives to traditional...
Pretoria midwife guilty of culpable homicide, assault and fraud
Disgraced former Pretoria midwife Yolande Fouchee (48) has been found guilty of multiple crimes, including the culpable homicide of a nine-day-old infant, reports News24.
Fouchee,...
US hospital sued after man dies under ICU telehealth care
The family of an American student who died in 2024 has launched a lawsuit against a hospital after he was declared dead via a...
After failed criminal and misconduct prosecutions, Basson faces new HPCSA hearing
Dr Wouter Basson, 75, the former head of the apartheid government’s secret chemical and biological warfare programme, will face four disciplinary charges brought by...
Xenophobia: the gap between legal theory and SA reality
There have been numerous instances lately of xenophobic groups preventing people from entering public healthcare facilities because they did not possess South African identity...
ANC bigwig’s daughter to repay millions in PPE contract scandal
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has welcomed the two judgments handed down by the Special Tribunal last week, which reviewed and set aside unlawful...
Court allows amputation of child’s feet despite parental objection
A six-year-old who developed gangrene in both feet will undergo lower limb amputation after the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital obtained permission from...
Illegal Midrand doctor nabbed after 10 years
Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said that 20 unregistered doctors were arrested in the 2025/2026 financial year for practising illegally, including one in Midrand...
Stellenbosch radiologist shooting case postponed
The case involving Stellenbosch radiologist Dr Pieter Henning, accused of firing his gun into the door of a vacant building last year while allegedly...
SARS nabs celebrity doctor on tax evasion
Well-known radio doctor Dr Leonard Mandlalele Mhinga (73) appeared in the Palm Ridge, Alberton, court on Monday facing 102 charges for not filing tax...
Victory for cancer victims as court allows generic medication
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has ruled that the generic prostate cancer medication Enzutrix will remain available at an affordable price, following a...
Limpopo Health liable for negligence in bungled birth case
The Limpopo Department of Health has been held liable for medical negligence after a traumatic childbirth nine years ago left a mother with life-altering...
Guilty verdict sought as Pretoria midwife denies guilt
Pretoria midwife Yolande Maritz Fouchee's legal team called for an acquittal of charges against her, but the state said it had proved its case...
TV radiologist rebrands company as HPCSA probe drags on
A Stellenbosch radiologist, once a familiar face after a string of television appearances, has rebranded his company amid a reputational battering linked to an...
Nursing staff accused of 'over-diagnosing' patients schizophrenic
Some nursing home staff in the United States are over-diagnosing their dementia patients with schizophrenia so they can prescribe antipsychotics and make them easier...
North West Health liable for finger fracture after diagnostic failure
A North West woman who had a finger fracture in 2016 has been left with a permanently disabling condition after staff at a provincial...
Western Cape Health sued for baby’s forceps birth injuries
Parents of a three-year-old girl in Delft, outside Cape Town, have attributed their child’s injuries to her traumatic birth at Mowbray Maternity Hospital, and...
Patient kept waiting nine hours for treatment after brain aneurysm
Mitchells Plain District Hospital may be hit with a lawsuit after a 39-year-old mother of three apparently waited nine hours before being seen by...
Recalled glucose monitor linked to seven deaths
A manufacturing problem in millions of Abbott glucose sensors has been tied to at least seven deaths and hundreds of injuries worldwide, reports NBC...
Indian court allows removal of coma patient’s life support
In a landmark ruling, India’s Supreme Court has approved the removal of life support of a 31-year-old man who has been in a vegetative...
Probe into Canadian clinics after two plasma donors die
Police in Canada are investigating the deaths of two people who died after donating plasma at a chain of clinics that has been under...
Durban mothers in IVF baby mix-up row
In a legal tussle likely to have lifelong implications on two families, a black couple from Ballito wants the courts to compel an Indian...
Mother fails in bid to sue hospital after child burial mix-up
A court has dismissed the damages claim from a North West mother who sued the local hospital and provincial health officials for R500 000...
Novartis settles with Lacks family in HeLa ‘stolen cells’ lawsuit
The family of Henrietta Lacks, the black woman whose cervical cells were harvested in 1951 without her knowledge and have been replicated infinitely ever...
Another negligence claim – R6.4m – pummels Eastern Cape Health
In the second financial blow this month to the Eastern Cape Department of Health, the provincial Health MEC has been ordered to pay more...
Eastern Cape doctor on bail after rape allegations
A doctor from the Eastern Cape was released on R5 000 bail last week after appearing in the Komani Magistrate’s Court on a charge...
Mother wants answers for 14-year-old’s death after childbirth complications
A heartbroken mother from Grassy Park, on the Cape Flats, is demanding answers for her 14-year-old daughter’s death, just weeks after giving birth, allegedly...
Hospital denies negligence after baby allegedly falls from incubator
Tygerberg Hospital says an internal review has found no evidence of negligence after parents claimed one of their newborn twins fell from an incubator...
Bayer offers $7.25bn settlement for Roundup cancer cases
Bayer said this week that its Monsanto unit had reached an agreement worth as much as $7.25bn to resolve tens of thousands of current and...
First malpractice verdict filed against child’s gender-affirming surgeries
A New York jury has returned a verdict against two healthcare workers who provided gender-affirming care to a minor in what is believed to...
Fake doctor charged with assault, kidnapping after botched op
A Massachusetts woman is facing multiple charges after impersonating a doctor and performing plastic surgery on a woman who has been left permanently scarred.
People...
Embattled Stellenbosch doctor now faces charges over patient’s death
A South African radiologist with practices countrywide – who is already facing allegations of impairment linked to opioid abuse, and has been charged with...
Midwife denies responsibility for babies’ disabilities, deaths
Former Pretoria midwife Yolande Maritz Fouchee, charged with assault and culpable homicide, denied responsibility for two babies born with disabilities – one dying shortly...
‘Hypnotic’ UK doctor cleared of sexual misconduct
A British medical tribunal has, for the second time, cleared a doctor of sexual misconduct after he was accused of talking to female patients...