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Medico-Legal
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...
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...