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Medico-Legal
End of 'Global Gag Rule' improves Uganda's abortion policy prospects
US President Joe Biden last month reversed the so-called “Global Gag Rule”, a 2017 executive order by former president Donald Trump. The rule revived...
KeyHealth offered brokers incentives to sign younger members
KeyHealth allegedly contravened the Medical Schemes Act through a financial incentive scheme for brokers to sign up younger members, it emerged in the court...
ActionSA takes up mother's COPD death following power cut
ActionSA president Herman Mashaba wants the eThekwini municipality to be charged for the death of a Newlands mother, after her oxygen machine could not...
Ekurhuleni hospital allegedly gave mother wrong baby to bury
The Ekurhuleni Metro Municipality is the latest authority to find itself caught up in the saga of a baby exhumation for DNA testing. This,...
'Insensitive and disrespectful' to treat dead foetus as 'medical waste'
The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has declared sections of the Births and Deaths Registration Act (BDRA) – which deems a foetus of less...
HPCSA disciplinary findings — January and February 2021
A doctor who prevented his colleagues from performing their hospital duties during an illegal strike and an occupational therapist fined R150,000 for falsifying documents...
Protector finds Bara staff negligent over missing corpse
Maladministration and improper conduct on the part of Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital staff were responsible for the disappearance of a corpse in 2013,...
Delayed treatment of broken ankle costs Limpopo Health R4.8m
The Limpopo Health MEC has been ordered by the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), to pay R4.8m in damages to a truck driver who needed...
Eastern Cape blames negligence payouts for failure to fill specialist posts
Most specialist posts at two of the Eastern Cape’s biggest hospitals remain vacant after the provincial health department failed to fill them. According to...
Leading UK neurosurgeon with advanced cancer wants assisted dying inquiry
Henry Marsh, one of the UK’s leading neurosurgeons and a bestselling author, has called for an urgent inquiry into assisted dying after revealing he...
‘Payment in kind’ ruling will now head to SCA
The Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) has granted leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal over the "public healthcare defence", which mandates ongoing...
Pretoria gynaecologist not liable for failure to detect Down syndrome
A full Bench of the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has refused to hold a gynaecologist liable for not detecting Down syndrome during the pregnancy...
Servier guilty of manslaughter and deceit over diabetes drug Mediator
French pharmaceutical Servier Laboratories has been found guilty of aggravated deceit and involuntary manslaughter and ordered to pay hundreds of millions of euros in...
Military union threatens litigation over SANDF's vaccination failure
The National Defence Union (SANDU) is threatening litigation against the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to ensure speedy vaccines for its health workers,...
University settles 700 abuse claims against campus gynaecologist
The University of Southern California has agreed a $852m settlement more than 700 women who accused the college’s long-time campus gynaecologist of sexual abuse,...
DoH seeks comment on possible new assisted conception regulations
Comment is sought "within three months" on proposals for replacing the 2012 regulations on artificial human fertilisation, writes Pam Saxby in Legalbrief Policy Watch....
Boston Scientific settles claims over deceptive surgical mesh marketing
Boston Scientific Corporation has agreed to pay $188.7m to settle claims by most US states that it deceptively marketed its surgical mesh devices to...
Zim lab staff charged with issuing fake COVID-19 certificates
Four laboratory staff members at Zimbabwe’s Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital have appeared in court for allegedly issuing fake COVID-19 clearance certificates. New Zimbabwe reports that...
New York ordered to vaccinate all jail inmates
New York must immediately begin to offer COVID-19 vaccines to all incarcerated people in the state’s prisons and jails, The New York Times reports...
Concourt rejects SAMA appeal over millions in trade union deductions
The Constitutional Court 's dismissal of a SA Medical Association application for leave to appeal, last week did not mean that the non-profit professional...
State-employed practitioners and the limits to their medical indemnity
Although State-employed medical doctors have indemnity against legal claims, this is not an absolute protection, write two Medical Protection experts in MedicalBrief. As well...
US Bill to prevent Sackler family from evading Oxycontin responsibilities
Representative Carolyn B Maloney, chair of the Committee of Oversight and Reform, and senior committee member Representative Mark DeSaulnier introduced the Stop Shielding Assets...
Another former Mkhize employee benefited from contentious COVID deal
A former employee at Health Minister Zweli Mkhize’s Ikusasa Le Afrika Foundation (ILAF) is among a coterie of individuals linked to the health minister...
Lobby group to approach Public Protector over DNA backlog
Lobby group Action Society has instructed its legal team to lodge a formal complaint with the Public Protector against the police and is also...
Coke tells Competition Commission layoffs due to sugar tax
Coca-Cola Beverages Africa has told the Competition Tribunal that the retrenchment of staff two years ago was due to the effect of the sugar...
SA procedures for handling and disposal of mortal remains amended
Procedures to be followed when handling and disposing of mortal remains during the COVID-19 State of Disaster were amended on Friday and are immediately...
Eastern Cape Health: R920m in negligence payouts and R4bn in unpaid bills
The Eastern Cape government is scrambling to find unspent funds to fix the hole in the province's Health budget, which is struggling under R4bn...
Portugal's top court narrowly rejects euthanasia Bill over 'imprecision'
Portugal’s Constitutional Court has blocked a law passed by parliament introducing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill and gravely injured people, ABC News...
CTN medical supplies company donates masks to avoid overcharging case
A Cape Town medical equipment company that had been accused of overcharging the Western Cape Health Department has donated tens of thousands of surgical...
Gauteng paid R117m to dubious companies for unnecessary fumigations
Six companies, some of which only came into existence recently, pocketed at least R117m in 11 months between March 2020 and January 2021 for...
Widespread UK unease over pandemic's curbs on freedoms
Two-thirds of UK citizens agree that curbs on freedoms put in place during the pandemic should be rolled back afterwards, according to a major...
Nelson Mandela Bay surgeon sued over procedure 6 years ago
A popular Nelson Mandela Bay surgeon is facing a multimillion-rand lawsuit for an operation he performed six years ago on a woman who claims...
EFF's Bill 'undesirable' says Health portfolio committee
A Bill seeking to amend the 2003 National Health Act to provide for state-funded clinics to operate ‘24 hours a day and seven days...
Health Dept suspends contract linked to Mkhize's associates
The Health Department has suspended the services of Digital Vibes, an obscure communications firm linked to two close associates of Health Minister Dr Zweli...
Cape motor-neurone disease patient argues for right to die
In spite of a lot of literature being available online about self-administered suicide, Diethelm Harck, who suffers from motor-neurone disease (MND), is adamant that...
Minister applauds 4-year UKZN medical school corruption probe
Minister of Higher Education, Science & Innovation Dr Blade Nzimande has welcomed the four-year investigation into allegations of “places for sale” at the University...
Eastern Cape Health ordered to pay 6 doctors' salaries
The Mthatha High Court has ordered the Eastern Cape Health Department and the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital to pay six medical officers their salaries...
Silicosis and TB claimants allowed to appeal rejections
The Tshiamiso Trust said prospective beneficiaries of a fund for those who have contracted silicosis and TB in the country's gold mines would get...
Sisters lose UK court fight over 'goodbye hug' for father in coma
Three sisters in the UK have failed to persuade a judge to rule that their brain-damaged father should be kept alive until they can...
Illicit cigarette market – a multi-billion-rand free-for-all for lawbreakers
South Africa's cigarette market has been "transformed into a multi-billion rand free-for-all for lawbreakers". News24 reports that this is according to British American Tobacco...