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Medico-Legal
New hearing for dismissed Covid ‘hugging’ duo
Two healthcare hospitality staff – fired for spontaneously hugging on Christmas Day 2020 after serving hospital patients – will have to wait to hear...
Judge to decide on Canadian woman‘s quest for assisted death
A Canadian man has asked a judge to block his 27-year-old daughter’s medically assisted death – originally scheduled for 1 February – arguing she lacks...
Ombud finds UK doctors' failures with Covid DNR orders
In a serious breach of human rights, British doctors made do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders for elderly and disabled patients during the pandemic without telling patients...
‘Trial by media’, murder accused paediatrician claims in court
Five years after he was arrested, renowned paediatric surgeon Peter Beale took the stand in the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) to answer to the...
Gynae in botched op legal suit now faces fraud charges
A gynaecologist appeared in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court last week facing fraud charges after a patient, Hlengiwe Mbambo, who claimed he botched her total...
Five nurses suspended amid negligence probe
Steve Biko Academic Hospital has placed five nurses on suspension after allegations of gross negligence relating to a video that involved a patient in...
UK health workers await Covid compensation hearing
Dozens of British healthcare workers with long Covid are still waiting for a High Court compensation hearing against the NHS, among others, whom they...
Triple murderer Lauren Dickason's sentencing delayed
South African doctor and convicted triple-murderer Lauren Dickason, who has been tightly guarded in a psychiatric hospital since being found guilty in August last...
Top court to decide on medical aid information disclosures
In a case that will have groundbreaking implications for medical schemes and its members, the Constitutional Court will today deliberate on the extent of...
Gauteng medico-legal claims decline
Gauteng Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said her department was winning the battle against financial mismanagement and other challenges, and had recorded a 7% decline...
Victim’s father wants Beale prosecuted ‘at all costs’, says defence lawyer
The legal team for murder-accused paediatric surgeon Peter Beale said the father of a 10-year-old boy who died after being operated on by him...
Health MEC to pay woman R4.4m after hot-water burn
Limpopo Health will have to cough up more than R4m in damages for a woman who was severely burned – and subsequently scarred –...
Judge slams hospital nurses over cerebral palsy negligence
A Gauteng High Court judge has lambasted a Limpopo hospital after its negligence resulted in the birth of a child – now 12 –...
Doctor in Lottery circumcision scandal fails to challenge probe
A Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe into National Lottery Commission (NLC) funding for a dodgy circumcision project is back on track, after Pretoria doctor...
Wrong family pulls plug on patient after hospital mix-up
In a terrible case of mistaken identity, a hospital in Vancouver, Canada, allowed a family to end life support on a man they thought...
Eastern Cape doctor in court on rape and kidnapping charges
A doctor pleaded not guilty this week when he appeared in the Eastern Cape High Court (Mthatha) facing a string of charges including five...
Gauteng Health guilty of negligence over baby's foot deformity
The parents of a now 12-year-old – whose foot was severely deformed after a drip inserted into the limb was left unchecked for 10...
Canadian community sues after ‘secret medical experiment’
A class action lawsuit has been launched by an indigenous group in Canada alleging they were subjected to a secret medical experiment in 2017...
Judge rules in favour of ‘miracle doctor’ and against hospital
A Western Cape judge has found in favour of a leading oncologist whose admission and practising privileges at Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital were terminated...
Justice in sight for cerebral palsy victims of rogue attorney
A team of lawyers, acting pro bono, have secured a court order forcing the Legal Practice Council (LPC) to help the victims of a...
Couple accuses Ramaphosa of links to medical aid fraud
A couple with a history of litigation now claims that President Cyril Ramaphosa benefitted from fraud and corruption, linked to various medical schemes, while...
US company hit by lawsuits over destroyed IVF embryos
A surge of lawsuits has been launched against a major American medical supply company – CooperSurgical – with patients claiming that one of its products...
Leading SA medical experts back euthanasia court challenge
Respected South African medical experts, including professors, oncologists, ethicists and anaesthesiologists, have thrown their weight behind a pending court challenge to legalise assisted suicide,...
Defence in Peter Beale trial questions mother's memory
The credibility of evidence from the mother of a boy who died after a procedure by Peter Beale was questioned in the Gauteng High...
Gauteng doctor fined after botching hysterectomy
A Johannesburg doctor was found guilty last week by the Health Professions Council of South Africa of unprofessional conduct and incompetence, after botching the...
Dickason likely to be sentenced in March for children's murders
Lauren Dickason, the South African woman found guilty of killing her three young daughters weeks after emigrating to New Zealand, may be sentenced in...
Baby’s decapitation during labour ruled homicide
A US medical examiner has ruled that the decapitation of an infant during delivery was a homicide, resulting directly from a fracture of cervical...
Commissioner recommends damages for UK pelvic mesh victims
Families of children left disabled by an epilepsy drug and women injured by pelvic mesh implants should be given urgent financial help, England’s patient...
State witness 'biased' and 'reckless', Beale's lawyer claims
Murder-accused paediatric surgeon Peter Beale’s decision to go home after operating on a 10-year-old boy, who suffered complications during the procedure, fell under the...
SA woman has assisted suicide after winning medical negligence claim
A 63-year-old South African woman ended her life last week in an assisted suicide at a clinic in Switzerland, after an eight-year battle to...
Gauteng Health 100% liable in R30m negligence claim, judge rules
A Gauteng High Court judge has concluded that the provincial Health Department was 100% liable for the damages a mother and her now cerebral...
Digital Vibes accused dismissed after disciplinary hearing
A Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA) employee has been dismissed after being found guilty – in an internal disciplinary hearing – of taking kickbacks...
GSK coughs up again in another Zantac settlement
British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has agreed to settle another lawsuit in California that alleged its discontinued heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer, the latest in...
Mega malpractice verdicts against US doctors on the rise
Staggeringly large malpractice awards against hospitals and doctors are rising worldwide, but especially in the United States, according to data from TransRe, an international...
HPCSA issues fines for expired medicines and false representation
Fines and suspensions – for cases including expired medicine, partnering with unregistered staff, and false representation – are among the penalties recently handed out...
Unlicensed NGO parades disabled patients in subsidy dispute protest
In a case reminiscent of the Life Esidimeni tragedy, another instance of the disdain shown to intellectually and physically disabled people has emerged in...
UK healthcare staff sue NHS over Covid contractions
British frontline workers who contracted Covid while taking care of patients have instituted legal action against NHS trusts, registered practices and any other applicable...
Worker forced to get Covid vaccine wins compensation from employer
A South Australian government employee who fell ill after getting a mandatory Covid vaccine has won compensation against his employer.
Daniel Shepherd worked as a...
Beale ignored advice not to operate on children, state claims
As the murder and fraud trial of Dr Peter Beale got underway this week, with the first state witness taking the stand, the prosecution...
SAMA urges law reform as paediatrician now faces murder charges
The South African Medical Association (SAMA) has again called for law reform after the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) changed the charges against paediatric surgeon...