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Medico-Legal
RAF heads to ConCourt in battle against medical aid payments
The Road Accident Fund (RAF) is now turning to the Constitutional Court after its application to appeal a ruling in favour of Discovery Health...
'Landmark' ruling confirms free healthcare right for all pregnant women, children
The Gauteng High Court, in a hard-hitting judgment which civil society groups said was a victory against xenophobia, has ruled that all pregnant women...
Discovery Life to appeal R25m payment for ‘disability’
Discovery Life has filed a notice for leave to appeal a High Court judgment that ordered it to pay more than R25m to a...
Legal vacancies hobble Gauteng Health and negligence claims
Already crippled by hundreds of negligence claims, Gauteng Health’s Legal Services Department is further hampered by critical shortages of staff and unfilled posts, with...
Health Department yet to receive anti-vax group legal papers over Pfizer jab
An anti-vax group claims to have issued a High Court application to challenge the authorisation of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine by Health Minister Joe...
SIU probes health-related fraud worth billions
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has instituted more than R1.6bn in health-related civil action cases in the High Court and the SIU special tribunal,...
Juul’s profits up in smoke after $462m vapes settlement
New York, California and several other states were awarded a hefty $462m settlement with the embattled, former vaping giant Juul Labs last week, resolving...
US abortion pill duel intensifies
Less than a year after the US Supreme Court declared it was ceding the matter of abortion to elected officials, judges are about to...
US man sues over alleged racial bias in transplant algorithm
An African American man is seeking millions of dollars in damages and a better position on the kidney transplant waiting list in a lawsuit...
Urgent need for diverse strategy to address rising medico-legal claims
As the number of medico-legal claims rise, with both the size and value of claims also mushrooming, there is an urgent need to review...
Neurosurgeon defends stance on Agrizzi’s prognosis
Neurosurgeon Dr Herman Edeling yesterday defended not performing a physical examination on former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi, accused of tender fraud.
Edeling was being cross-examined...
Life Esidimeni inquest postponed as MEC’s lawyers unpaid
The inquest into the Life Esidimeni deaths has been postponed to May because the State Attorney has failed to pay the lawyers of former...
Cancer victims’ lawyers slam J&J's second bankruptcy bid
Johnson & Johnson’s second attempt to resolve talc lawsuits in bankruptcy should be dismissed as an unprecedented fraud designed to deny plaintiffs just compensation,...
Big Pharma slams US abortion pill ruling
In an open letter published in the US, pharmaceutical and biotech company executives have described as “judicial activism” last week’s ruling by a Texas...
Surgeon who called Covid a hoax fails to overturn suspension
The British High Court has upheld a decision to suspend a senior surgeon from the UK medical register for six months for airing conspiracy...
GEMS faces court action over alleged ‘dodgy’ tender claims – again
A black-owned pharmacy group has taken legal action against SA’s biggest medical scheme for public servants, claiming it broke its own tender rules with...
Department to pay after lawyers' blunder in cerebral palsy appeal case
The Eastern Cape Health Department will have to fork out millions of rands in damages to the mother of a child born with cerebral...
Public Protecter finds hospital staff failed to report teen’s rape
The Office of the Public Protector has found that staff failed to report the rape of a minor patient at Stellenbosch Hospital to police,...
South African scientists say Pfizer jab legal challenge ‘baseless’
Legal claims aiming to link Pfizer’s vaccine with a spike in adverse reactions, including disability and death, have been dismissed by scientists, who said...
More players join lawsuit for concussion-related disorders
A group of more than 150 former soccer, rugby league and rugby union players suffering from neurological impairments have joined a class-action lawsuit against...
J&J proposes settlement of billions in talc cancer claims
Johnson & Johnson has proposed an $8.9bn settlement to resolve lawsuits claiming its talc products caused cancer, after a ruling last week that its...
UK judges rule that medics can be named in babies deaths suits
British judges have ruled that two families – who want restrictions lifted on naming medics involved in their children’s disputed care – can continue...
Nigerian couple faces prison in UK in organ-harvesting case
After a landmark trial in Britain, a wealthy Nigerian politician and his wife are facing jail for an organ-harvesting plot involving a UK hospital...
Sandton doctor linked to escaped 'Facebook' rapist not registered: HPCSA
Well-known Sandton personality Nandipha Magudumana, founder of Optimum Medical Aesthetics, a skincare clinic specialising in non-surgical treatments like Botox, who has been linked to...
HPCSA misconduct hearing for doctor with previous charges, suspensions
A gynaecologist who was struck from the UK register in 2006 for “persistent dishonesty over more than a decade”, “flagrant disregard for his responsibilities...
AstraZeneca sued over jab side effects
AstraZeneca is under legal fire from dozens of people over a side effect of its Covid-19 vaccine – a rare condition involving blood clots...
State's Covid-19 fraud cases total R1.8bn
The Financial Intelligence Centre has its hands full with investigations into Covid-19 fraud, and has helped recover criminal assets relating to PPE and TERS...
Court grants R16m and free medical care in Easter Cape negligence case
The Eastern Cape Health Department has been ordered by the Eastern Cape High Court (Mthatha) to cough up R16m in damages to the mother of...
Million-dollar pay-out after loss of embryos, eggs over fertility clinic malfunction
An appeal of a US landmark jury verdict awarding nearly $15m to five people who lost embryos and eggs in a fertility clinic mishap...
RAF turns to Appeals Court over medical aids directive ruling
The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has now appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal to overturn a judgment declaring its directive that no payments...
Doctor gets green light to sue colleague over amputation
A Standerton doctor who was shot during a robbery and whose colleagues then amputated his leg has got the court's go-ahead to prove the...
NHS to pay to £25 000 to SA nurse for racial slurs
A black South African nurse, working at an immigrant removal centre at Heathrow, was awarded £25 000 after suing the National Health Service (NHS)...
Crucial Tembisa Hospital corruption evidence stolen
A cellphone belonging to suspended Gauteng Health Department HoD Lerato Madyo, which was vital evidence in the R850m fraud and corruption probe into Tembisa...
Paediatrician testifies in five-year-old's abuse and murder case
The paediatrician giving evidence in the abuse and murder trial of a five-year-old girl told the Western Cape High Court last week that he had...
Discovery battles for affordable cystic fibrosis drug
While an international campaign by patient advocates and health activists gathers momentum, Discovery Health says it has been negotiating with US pharmaceutical manufacturer Vertex...
Limpopo ex-Health boss fails in pension access bid
Former Limpopo Health HoD Thokozani Mhlongo has failed in her bid to unfreeze her pension, with a Special Tribunal dismissing her application to reconsider...
Woman arrested for running bogus nursing colleges
A woman accused of running bogus nursing colleges and registering unsuspecting students under the pretext that they would acquire diplomas, was arrested last weekend...
Eastern Cape Health boosts legal teams to fight bogus medical claims
The Eastern Cape provincial Health Department is tackling bogus medical negligence team head on, beefing up its artillery of legal defences with a mass...
Nurse on misconduct charges for shaming patient who miscarried
An Eastern Cape nurse has been suspended and faces misconduct charges after allegations that she not only verbally abused a young patient (23) after...
US insulin infusion doctor barred from solo practice
A US doctor, found guilty of gross negligence, incompetence and unprofessional conduct, has been placed on seven years’ probation and barred from operating a...