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Medico-Legal
HPCSA dishes out Ubuntu courses and drug rehab as penalties
Inappropriate advice for treating a child, drug dependency, and unregistered acupuncture were among the cases considered by the Health Professions Council of SA between...
Convicted murderer Lauren Dickason served with deportation order
South African doctor Lauren Dickason has reportedly been served with a deportation order by Immigration New Zealand after having been found guilty of murdering...
Probe after patients get HIV from organ transplants
Brazilian health officials are scrambling to explain how six transplant patients in the country’s well-regarded public health system received organs infected with HIV –...
Cancer victim to get $15m from J&J
Johnson & Johnson has said it will fight back against last week’s findings by a jury that it should pay $15m to a Connecticut...
Family wins decade-long legal battle against Profmed
Nearly 10 years after being kicked off her medical aid and accused of not disclosing existing medical conditions, a Cape Town woman who took...
GSK pays millions for 80 000 Zantac lawsuits
British pharmaceutical company GSK has agreed to pay up to $2.2bn to settle 80 000 lawsuits in US courts claiming a discontinued version of heartburn...
Doctors win libel case against British tabloid
Britain’s Associated Newspapers Ltd has been forced to eat humble pie in a landmark case that will see it cough up for “substantial damages...
Court denies Cape gynae’s plea to restore hospital privileges
A Western Cape obstetrician and gynaecologist, suspended last year after two patients died, was given short shrift by the court this week after he...
Parents lose sterilisation case against doctor
The parents of a now six-year-old child, who were claiming damages from a Free State gynaecologist they accused of failing to perform a sterilisation...
Gauteng's negligence payouts up by 36%
Astronomical amounts in medical negligence claims have been paid out by provincial Health Departments, with Gauteng’s having soared 36% in the past year –...
Gauteng pair to repay R5m after sale of unregulated masks
Unapproved face masks – sold for R5m by two Gauteng men during the Covid-19 pandemic – had to be destroyed because they were sold...
Novo, Lilly sued by patients for gastroparesis
Swedish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has denied that its diabetic drug Ozempic is responsible for causing stomach paralysis in patients, and has vowed to “vigorously...
Operating team describes spleen surgery gone horribly wrong
A US Health Department has issued an emergency licence suspension for an osteopath who removed a patient’s liver instead of his spleen, contributing to...
UK doctor struck off after leaving unsecured records in flat
A British doctor, who was already suspended when she left abortion papers, psychiatric reports and other confidential patient records at her rented flat after...
Judge rules that negligence, not traditional herbs, caused cerebral palsy
A Gauteng High Court judge has ruled the Mpumalanga MEC fully liable for a baby being born with severe brain damage, despite hospital staff...
Dead foetuses removed a month apart, but woman loses case
A woman whose miscarried twins were removed from her body 30 days apart has lost her R1.8m negligence lawsuit, with a North West High...
Cataract patient who lost eyesight objects to Netcare surveillance report
A man who went blind in one eye after a cataract procedure and claimed millions in damages from Netcare has objected to the court...
UK nursing regulator boss resigns after report
The chair of the UK’s nursing regulator has announced he will step down, months after a damning review prompted by a newspaper exposé uncovered a series of...
British surgeon uses penknife to open patient’s chest
A surgeon at a crisis-hit NHS Trust used a Swiss Army knife to open the chest of a patient in an emergency because he...
Arrests after woman’s death from non-surgical butt lift
British police have arrested two people on suspicion of manslaughter after the death of a woman who had undergone a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift...
Suspended Headache Clinic director faces another complaint
Another complaint has been filed against the Headache Clinic director, Dr Elliot Shevel (81), recently suspended by the Health Professionals Council of SA (HPCSA)...
Suspended SAA medical officer denies misconduct, threatens lawsuit
SAA’s suspended chief medical officer Nonhlanhla Sishaba has denied the allegations of misconduct levelled against her by the airline and the SA Civil Aviation...
Man died after AstraZeneca vaccine offered in error by NHS, inquiry finds
A British man died in agony three weeks after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab, having been given the vaccine despite not being eligible, an...
Women guilty of fatally infecting neighbour with Covid-19
An Australian court has found a woman (54) guilty of fatally infecting her neighbour with Covid-19 – her second pandemic-related conviction in a year...
US drug middlemen sued for inflating insulin prices
America’s Federal Trade Commission has announced it is suing three drug middlemen, accusing them of inflating insulin prices – long a topic of controversy...
Dentist to fix prisoners’ teeth as punishment for patient's negligent death
Durban dentist Anwar Mohamed Jeewa, convicted of culpable homicide for the death of Canadian Milos Martinovic – who died at his unregistered detox centre...
SIU cracks down on fraudulent Eastern Cape medico-legal claims
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU), which is conducting a review of all Eastern Cape provincial medico-legal claims and cracking down on crooked lawyers behind...
New medics to clear airline staff after dodgy certificate scandal
The SA Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) has appointed 83 new doctors to conduct new tests for dozens of aviation employers who were allegedly issued...
Officials admit they didn’t act, Lucy Letby inquiry hears
Leading British officials have conceded that they failed to act timeously or make known their initial concerns and suspicions about killer nurse Lucy Letby,...
Yale settles with patients who sued over painful egg retrievals
Yale University in the US agreed this week to pay dozens of patients who had filed lawsuits claiming that they had endured excruciatingly painful...
UK hospital reviews cases of 700 children treated by orthopaedic surgeon
London’s well-known Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) is overseeing an urgent review of the cases of more than 700 patients after concerns were raised...
Headache Clinic founder suspended after patient deaths
Headache specialist Dr Elliot Shevel (81), who has won international renown for his techniques in helping patients overcome head pains – and has also...
Judge directs HPCSA to probe ‘poor quality’ of doctor’s rape report
A doctor whose “apparent lack of professional conduct” nearly sank the state’s case against two rapists may face a probe by the Health Professions...
Women sues after weight-loss drugs lead to bowel surgery
An American woman is suing Novo Nordisk after having to undergo drastic emergency surgery, claiming labels on its weight loss drugs do not adequately...
Price of lifesaving drug deliberately hiked – UK court
British taxpayers were forced to pay millions of pounds for a lifesaving drug after a pharmaceutical company deliberately inflated the cost, pushing it up...
Hospital sued after nurse swops IV fentanyl for water
Attorneys representing both living and deceased patients of an Oregon, USA, hospital have filed a $303m lawsuit against the facility after a nurse was...
J&J ups talc settlement offer
Johnson & Johnson is digging ever deeper into its coffers, planning to pay an additional $1.1bn to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its...
Experts call for deeper probe into baby killer nurse case
More than 20 experts have called on the British Government to delay a public inquiry into the case of former neonatal nurse and convicted...
Dentist guilty of culpable homicide after patient's overdose
A Durban dentist who was found guilty of culpable homicide after the death of a man at his “rehabilitation centre” has protested his innocence,...
Pretoria midwife faces another baby brain damage claim
More allegations have been added to the raft of charges against a former Pretoria midwife, with another couple now alleging that their child’s severe...