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Medico-Legal
J&J confirms end to global talc sales amid contamination litigation
Johnson & Johnson, which faces a barrage of legal challenges over its talc-based baby powder, confirmed last week that it would stop selling global...
US anti-vax doctor starts prison sentence for Capital Riots break-in
Controversial anti-vaxxer US doctor Simone Gold, founder of America’s Frontline Doctors and promoter of unproved COVID treatments like Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, was placed on “inactive...
HPCSA disciplinaries from May to July 2022
Numerous counts of fraudulent medical aid claims and the selling of COVID certificates, inappropriate treatment of critically ill patients, a doctor who turned off...
Muslim pharmacist takes Life Entabeni Hospital to CCMA over dress code
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) held an arbitration hearing yesterday to decide whether Durban’s Life Entabeni Hospital acted unfairly towards a...
Archie Battersbee dies after parents lose legal battle over life support
Twelve-year-old Archie Battersbee, whose parents fought a long-running legal battle to prevent his life support treatment from being removed, died on Saturday when doctors...
HPCSA: Medics fined, suspended, and bogus doctors arrested
The Health Professionals Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has revealed that 55 people were arrested between 2021 and 2022 for either being bogus doctors...
Mkhize accuses SIU of delaying Digital Vibes probe
Deliberate delaying tactics by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) are stalling progress in the Digital Vibes probe, lawyers acting for former Health Minister Zweli...
Inquiry recommends urgent compensation for infected blood victims as death toll rises
The victims of Britain’s contaminated blood scandal should receive at least £100,000 in compensation each “without delay”, the chair of the inquiry examining the...
UK Supreme Court rejects bid to intervene in life-support battle for 12-year-old
In a massive blow to the parents of brain-damaged Archie Battersbee (12), Britain’s Supreme Court has turned down their application to intervene in a...
SIU to probe suspicious medical negligence claims
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has been given the nod by President Cyril Ramaphosa to probe corruption and maladministration at national and provincial Health...
2 000 patients died from severe adverse events at Gauteng Hospitals last year
Nearly 2,000 patients died in Gauteng public hospitals last year from “severe adverse events” (SAEs), 1,105 of them being at Pretoria’s Kalafong Provincial Tertiary...
Amputee awaits compensation after court orders DoH to pay for negligence
A 48-year-old Pietermaritzburg man has been waiting two months for the KZN Department of Health to compensate him for medical negligence after an apparent...
Brain-injured rugby players lodge class action against global unions
Former Wales rugby captain Ryan Jones last week announced he has been diagnosed with early onset dementia and probable CTE – the latest of...
Appeals tribunal ruling in doctor in transgenderism case
In October 2019, writes Wrigley Solicitors in Mondaq, we reported on the Employment Tribunal’s decision in the case of Dr David Mackereth, a doctor...
Man who cut wife’s throat in ‘act of love’ calls for assisted dying law
A British man has called for a law change to allow assisted dying after pleading guilty for cutting his terminally ill wife’s throat in...
NHS compensation claims bill escalates, but more cases resolved outside court
Spending on claims by the NHS' dispute-handling body rose to £2.5bn last year, a climb from £2.3bn in 2020/21, despite initiatives to slash the...
Hundreds of Latin American fruit workers blame pesticide for sterility
A pesticide used by US companies on plantations in Latin America has been blamed for making tens of thousands of former banana workers sterile.
The...
Health Department official resigns over Digital Vibes, colleagues demoted
The dodgy R150m Digital Vibes communications tender, which led to the resignation of former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize and more recently, the demotion of...
Afriforum to legally challenge HPCSA delay of 12,000 registration certificates
AfriForum Youth plans to lodge a mandamus application to compel the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) to process the applications of medical...
HPCSA, DoH threatened with legal action over foreign-trained doctors' placement
The Health Professions Council of South Africa's (HPCSA) handling of internship appointments has again been slammed, and legal action threatened, in letters sent last...
Phaahla claims 'legal privilege' over incriminating emails
Health Minister Joe Phaahla is claiming “legal privilege” for emails from legal advisers that have landed in the hands of his opponents in a...
Demotions ‘a slap on the wrist’ for top officials implicated in Digital Vibes scandal
Two Department of Health top officials have been demoted for a year for their roles in the Digital Vibes communications contract scandal that sank...
Court orders life support switch-off for Archie Battersbee (12)
A 12-year-old boy with brain damage should be taken off life support, a British High Court has ruled, after specialists said they do not...
Medical expert witnesses ‘should not scapegoat doctors’, says MPS
Medical experts in cases involving doctors should have a mandatory duty to consider systems issues such as inadequate staffing levels to avoid them being...
US doctor threatens defamation suit over 10-year-old’s abortion case
In a case demonstrating the potential fallout of America’s recent overturning of the controversial Roe v Wade ruling, a doctor who performed an abortion...
Controversial weed-killing chemical found in most US urine samples
A US Government study has found that a widely used but controversial herbicide linked to cancer is showing up in a number of people,...
Cosatu challenge to ‘polarising’ workplace vaccination heads for national level
Cosatu plans to challenge mandatory COVID-19 vaccination at a “national, policy level” and wants workers who have been dismissed for non-compliance to be reinstated.
Matthew...
UK patient dies after procedure by octogenarian doctor who lied about age
An 81-year-old Nigerian doctor in the UK, who lied about his age to keep his job, has been jailed for three years after killing...
Biden order eases access to abortion, protects clinics and physicians
US President Joe Biden has signed an executive order on abortion to ease access to medical services for abortion and contraceptives after the Supreme...
Nurse's alleged killer appears in Tembisa court
Lucky Mudau, the policeman accused of killing his ex-lover at the Tembisa Hospital in February before shooting himself, appeared in court for the first...
Former Theranos collaborator Ramesh Balwani convicted of fraud
A jury in California has convicted former Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani of collaborating with disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes in a massive fraud...
SA’s foreign-trained doctors score legal victory against HPCSA
The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) was on the receiving end of an “unprecedented” landmark court ruling recently after a class action...
NGO takes Health MEC to court for immigrants to access healthcare
After a two-year-old Zimbabwean boy died when a state hospital denied him treatment because his mother had no birth certificate, SECTION27, a public interest...
CCMA victory for employee dismissed over vaccine refusal
An employee who refused to have a COVID-19 vaccine and was subsequently dismissed has been awarded a year’s salary as compensation in a Commission...
Health Act amendments a bid by government 'to cling to power' – DA
The Health Ministry continues to face resistance to proposed regulations, described as “draconian” and “unconstitutional”, forcing people to submit to medical examination, quarantine and...
PPE contractor ordered to pay back R103m 'unlawful' tender
The Special Tribunal declared unlawful and invalid a multimillion-rand personal protective equipment (PPE) tender awarded by the Gauteng Department of Health to Zakheni Strategic...
‘Brain-dead’ boy’s parents win appeal fight in life-support case
The parents of 12-year-old British boy, Archie Battersbee, have won an appeal against ending his life support treatment. A court of appeal last week...
Roe vs Wade: US abortion rights’ ruling could hurt women worldwide
The US Supreme Court’s overturning of a landmark abortion ruling threatens the freedom of women in all countries – including South Africa.
While women in...
Health facility ordered to pay damages over 'finger bite' negligence
The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has ruled against a healthcare facility and in favour of a woman whose wedding ring finger was amputated after...
State hospitals owe R21bn in medical negligence claims
Medico-legal claims against the government amounted to billions over the past two financial years, most of it from claimants in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo,...