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Medico-Legal
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...
Brain-damaged cancer patient sues NHS after eight years of chemo
A British cancer patient is taking legal action against the NHS after being given chemotherapy for eight years instead of six months and being...
IVF clinic sued after woman has someone else’s baby
A woman is suing a fertility clinic in Florida, United States, after she gave birth to a baby that wasn’t genetically hers, reports MSN.
According...
Expert testimony allowed in J&J talc cancer case
Johnson & Johnson was hit with a court decision last week that could negatively affect its defence of lawsuits from plaintiffs alleging its baby...
Russian doctors arrested after nine newborns die
The acting head of intensive care at a Siberian hospital as well as its chief physician have been arrested after the deaths of nine...
Outrage over payouts for UK’s infected blood victims
An outcry has erupted in Britain after the ”ridiculous” compensation payments suggested for victims of unethical medical research, particularly schoolchildren who were infected with...
French 'hero' doctor gets life sentence for poisoning 30 patients
An anaesthetist who deliberately poisoned patients so he could then heroically “save” their lives and bring them back from the brink of death, has...
Author accuses Lagos hospital of negligence after son’s death
Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has accused a Lagos hospital of negligence after the 6 January death of one of her 21-month-old twin boys, reports The...
New warning added to contraceptive drug label as lawsuits rise
With more than 1 800 lawsuits linked to Pfizer’s Depo-Provera contraceptive drug, the US Food & Drug Administration is now officially warning users of a...
J&J appeals order to pay $40m to two cancer patients
Johnson & Johnson is to appeal a Los Angeles jury’s order to pay $40m to two women who claimed its talcum powder caused their...
Lawsuits blaming GLP-1s for blindness gather momentum
A United States federal judicial panel has said it would centralise a growing number of lawsuits against Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly – alleging...
Second doctor sentenced in Matthew Perry overdose death case
A Californian doctor who sold ketamine to Friends star Matthew Perry has been sentenced to eight months of home detention and three years of...
Court overturns Gauteng Health cancer order
The Cancer Alliance says it is disappointed by the High Court’s overturning of a previous ruling that a March judgment ordering Gauteng Health to...
Private hospital loses appeal to evade liability for brain injured baby
A private hospital’s bid to wash its hands of a troubled labour that caused the foetus to suffer debilitating brain injuries – and to...
Stellenbosch doctor in opioid abuse inquiry now charged with gun violations
A Stellenbosch radiologist, who has been arrested and his previously respected reputation seriously dented amid a storm of criminal charges and allegations of opioid...
Prison for doctor who sold ketamine to actor Perry
The US doctor who pleaded guilty to selling ketamine to actor Matthew Perry in the weeks before the Friends star’s overdose death, has been...
Health ombud exposes system failures as doctor’s widow seeks payout
The deaths of two men have been attributed to major flaws, failures and shoddy record-keeping, the Health Ombud has found, revealing some of the...
San Francisco sues food companies over ultra-processed foods
The city of San Francisco sued Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez and other makers of ultra-processed foods this week, accusing them of knowingly sickening California...
UK court reserves judgment in misconduct case
The decision of a British tribunal to allow a doctor to continue practising – after he admitted removing the ovaries of two women without...
GP gives murder accused nine days’ sick leave without examination
The Western Cape High Court heard that a GP had issued a nine-day sick note to a patient – accused of murder – based...
Judge green-lights opioid settlement with Purdue, Sackler family
A federal bankruptcy court judge has said he will approve OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma's latest deal to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of...
Nurse accused of swopping liquid opioid with household cleaner
A Massachusetts-based nurse who worked at a long-term care and rehabilitation facility has pleaded not guilty to replacing a hospice patient’s oxycodone with a...
Disgraced doctor seeks reinstatement after disbarring
Former Gqeberha endocrinologist Dr Gregory Hough, disbarred by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) after being found guilty of sexual misconduct involving...
Beauty therapist gets 15 years for second fatal butt silicone jab
A year after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter for performing a fatal butt lift on Durban’s Karissa Rajpaul, a Californian “beauty therapist” has now...
Helen Joseph nurse accused of assaulting hospital visitors
A nurse at Helen Joseph Hospital has been accused of manhandling, punching, and injuring a family who were visiting a patient and who have...
Tylenol lawsuits may be revived
US pharmaceutical company Kenvue could face the revival of more than 500 private lawsuits alleging its Tylenol painkiller causes autism, after an appeals court panel...
Life sentence for nurse who killed patients ‘to reduce workload’
A palliative care nurse in Germany has been sentenced to life behind bars for the murder of 10 patients and attempted murder of 27...
Cancer victim dies after alleged wrong diagnosis of TB
A 20-year-old woman from Bizana in the Eastern Cape who was apparently treated treated for tuberculosis (TB) for two years instead of cancer as...
Eastern Cape Health to fork out R12m in negligence case
The Eastern Cape Department of Health has been ordered to pay more than R12m to the mother of a child with cerebral palsy that...
Disbarred medico-legal lawyer’s wife also struck off
The wife of disgraced medico-legal lawyer Zuko Nonxuba has, like her husband, also been struck from the roll of attorneys – partly stemming from...
Health Department 100% liable after brain injury birth
A maternity nurse told a woman experiencing labour pains to go home and return “only if she sees something coming out of her vagina”....
Texas AG sues makers of Tylenol for ‘hiding autism risks’
Johnson & Johnson, which makes Tylenol, and its spin-off company Kenvue, which has sold the medication since 2023, are being sued by the Attorney-General...
Bail reduced for US doctor accused by 180 patients of sexual abuse
A former family physician in Oregon accused of widespread sexual abuse by his patients has had his bail reduced by 80% in a pre-trial...
Doctors, experts owed millions by Road Accident Fund
Millions are owed to doctors and other healthcare specialists, with bills stretching to a decade ago in some cases and others forced to retrench...
Patient loses second legal bid in faulty drip case
A judge has dismissed the second legal bid by a former Potchefstroom Hospital patient to claim damages from the North West Province Health MEC after...
More delays for scarred woman's suit against Durban hospital, surgeon
Netcare Hospital Group and a surgeon have both denied liability in the case of a Durban woman who claims severe burns on her back...
Doctor to cough up for dismissing staffer (72) on WhatsApp
A judge has ordered a KwaZulu-Natal doctor to compensate her former employee R120 000 for an age-related dismissal conducted via a WhatsApp message, reports...
HPCSA opposes sexual misconduct doctor’s ban appeal
The High Court has reserved judgment after an endocrinologist, who was permanently struck from the medical roll in July after being found guilty for...
Limpopo mother wins damages after surgery on son’s wrong leg
A Limpopo mother has successfully sued the provincial Health MEC for damages after an orthopaedic surgeon operated on her eight-year-old son – but on...