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Medico-Legal
Headache Clinic doctor faces murder charge
South African headache specialist Dr Elliot Shevel has been charged with the murder of former patient Marinella Avvakoumides, who died hours after undergoing a...
Discovery wants back R16m paid for ‘permanent disability’
Discovery Life wants to recover R16m it paid to a KwaZulu-Natal man who claimed he was permanently disabled due to depression – and unable to...
Disbarred doctor back in court, guilty of fraud, corruption
A Western Cape man, who was disbarred in 2017 but who continued treating patients and dispensing medication under the name of another doctor, has...
Medico-legal lawyer off the hook in misappropriation case
In an unexpected decision, a Legal Practice Council (LPC) disciplinary committee has acquitted a lawyer – who paid just R50 000 of a R15m medical...
Doctor prescribes Ozempic but obesity was 28kg tumour
A Norwegian man who was about to undergo gastric sleeve surgery – and who had struggled for more than a decade with his weight...
Paediatrician had no motive to kill children, defence argues
Well-known paediatric surgeon Professor Peter Beale was in the dock again this week as the state and defence presented closing arguments in his murder...
HPCSA starts probe into Premier’s rant against migrant patients
The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has begun its misconduct inquiry into Limpopo Premier Dr Phophi Ramathuba over her tirade directed at...
Court tussle over Medihelp’s refusal to cover costly meds
Medical aid scheme Medihelp has been entangled in a legal battle for more than two years with a Gauteng mother over treatment for her...
Cape mother wins childbirth negligence case – 14 years later
The Western Cape High Court has ruled in favour of a mother in a medical negligence case against Health MEC Mireille Wenger, linked to...
Tiger Brands in talks to pay urgent listeriosis medical bills
Although there is still no trial date on the horizon, in a major development on the listerioris saga, Tiger Brands is talking to the...
Court injunction stops Canadian woman’s scheduled euthanasia
A Canadian woman – who had scheduled an assisted suicide for 27 October – had her plan blocked when a British Columbian judge issued...
Leg amputation not due to medical negligence, rules judge
A Gauteng patient whose right leg was amputated above the knee lost her legal bid to claim damages from the Health MEC, with the...
NPA dragging its heels on Life Esidimeni
Eight years since the tragedy of Life Esidimeni, and four months after the conclusion of the inquest into the case, the National Prosecuting Authority...
Inquests probe surgeon who pitched ‘cleavage-sparing’ mastectomies
Procedures performed by a convicted British breast surgeon were not a recognised or authorised type of operation, with an inquest hearing last week that...
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...