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Medico-Legal
Mpumalanga Health accepts liability for chef's disabled arm
Mpumalanga Health has accepted 100% liability for the fact that a former Pretoria chef cannot use his left arm and hand properly, nor open...
Code of conduct for health inspectors gazetted
The Office of Health Standards Compliance has gazetted a code of conduct for the inspectors of public and private health care facilities falling within...
Walmart sued for medical fraud over homeopathic medicines
The largest retailer in the US has been sued for medical fraud. Forbes reports that in a lawsuit filed in the District of Columbia,...
Legal 'jumble' behind gynaecologist's 5-year jail sentence
The recent Gauteng High Court judgment upholding a 5-year jail sentence for gynaecologist Dr Danie van der Walt fails to make unambiguous SA's criminal law...
CMS contradicts itself over enforcement of rulings
Uncertainty reigns as to whether medical schemes can legally ignore rulings by the Council for Medical Schemes while an appeal is in process.
The Sunday Times...
State details its 3 murder charges against DignitySA founder
The State has detailed the three murder charges faced by the founder of right-to-die organisation DignitySA, Sean Davison, who will appear in the Western...
Durban doctor back in court over conspiracy to murder case
A case where a Durban neurosurgeon is accused of conspiring to kill his orthopaedic surgeon brother-in-law is awaiting a decision from the senior public...
Neurologist's failure to inform patient of medication side-effects
Acting in good faith does not excuse a breach of duty in not fully informing a patient of the risks of her prescribed medication,...
$17bn action against drugmakers over opioid epidemic opens
The first case in a flood of litigation against opioid drug manufacturers has opened on Oklahoma. According to a NPR report, Oklahoma attorney general...
Court of Appeal swayed by surgeon's detailed med scheme notes
North West surgeon Dr Samuel Smith's detailed motivation to a patient's medical scheme for keyhole surgery instead of riskier open surgery finally, after two years...
Anaesthetist accused of poisoning patients in order to 'save’ them
A criminal investigation has been launched against a French doctor over the poisoning of 17 people in France, reports BBC News. Frédéric Péchier, an...
French court orders resumption of life support in ‘right-to-die' controversy
A French court has ordered doctors to resume life support for a quadriplegic man whose case has become central to the right-to-die debate in...
Gilead accused of anti-competitive deals to block ARV generics
According to a consumer lawsuit, the lifesaving combination-drug “cocktails” to treat HIV infection were the focus of anti-competitive schemes by the US’s leading HIV...
Record keeping and the value of the mundane in avoiding litigation
In keeping records and making notes it is sometimes important to record and report on the mundane, unexceptional and/or the positive, such as the...
Punitive damages order over 'wholly unnecessary' trial
KwaZulu-Natal Health has had a punitive costs order handed down against it for "wholly unnecessary judicial proceedings" in contesting a case in which a mother sued...
HPCSA's application to appeal Basson verdict dismissed
The Health Professions Council of SA has suffered yet another defeat in its protracted legal battles with apartheid-era Dr Wouter Basson, according to Rapport. The...
R23m suit against Netcare Greenacres and former PE paediatrician
Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth) Acting Judge Nicholas Mullins heard that a cascade of events that left a new-born baby with severe brain...
Pharmas named in major generic drug price-fixing suit
Law enforcement authorities from dozens of states in the US have filed a federal complaint accusing 20 pharmaceutical companies – including Teva, Sandoz and...
Gauteng Health found liable for rugby player's death
The High Court (Pretoria) has ruled that Gauteng Health is to pay damages following the death of local rugby league player Zacharius Johannes de Lange’s...
Jury awards $2bn in another verdict against Monsanto
A California jury has awarded a couple more than $2bn in a verdict against Monsanto, a subsidiary of Bayer. According to a NPR report,...
SA policies on medical treatment for aliens again face court scrutiny
An Ethiopian asylum seeker who was after three months of treatment denied dialysis at Helen Joseph Hospital in Johannesburg because she lacks the "appropriate" documentation,...
US drug company head found guilty of fuelling the opioid epidemic
The head of a leading US drug manufacturer has been found guilty of bribing doctors to prescribe a dangerous painkiller to patients who did...
Inquiry: Infected blood given to UK patients after safe-date cutoff?
Contaminated blood may have been given to National Health Service (NHS) patient in the UK after the date when transfusions were supposed to have...
KZN medical waste company fails to stop award of rival contractor
A medical waste company that has been the sole medical waste service provider in KwaZulu-Natal for the past 20 years has failed in its...
R20m claim for retinopathy of prematurity
The parents of a girl – now aged nine – are claiming more than R20m in damages from the Gauteng Health Department after the...
HPCSA to appeal over 'serious implications' of Basson recusal judgment
The Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) is expected to apply for leave to appeal a judgment recusing two of its members from the...
Parents sue Durban private hospital over alleged sexual assault in casualty
The parents of a teenage girl are suing a Durban private hospital, alleging that she was sexually assaulted by a male nurse in the...
Doctor who defrauded Bonitas is now on the run
The Hawks are looking for a medical doctor from Mpumalanga who allegedly failed to pay a compensatory fine of R185,000 to Bonitas Medical Aid...
Lenient suspension of Aussie doctor over rape comments questioned
The health district in Australia responsible for the hospital which employs an emergency doctor who said “some women deserve to be raped” has ordered...
Gynaecologist’s jail sentence for negligence a worrying precedent — SASOG
The SA Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has "noted with significant concern" a High Court judgment that upheld the sentence of of five years direct...
Tiger Brands readied for 'big and nasty' fight over listeriosis class action
More than a year after South Africa’s largest food producer Tiger Brands recalled its ready-to-eat processed meat products and closed its production facilities over...
HPCSA to appeal High Court judgment on Dr Death
A crushing defeat suffered by the Health Professions Council of SA after years of attempts to take disciplinary action against apartheid-era doctor Wouter Basson,...
Gauteng Health sued over medicine overdose patient 'left to die'
Gauteng Health MEC Dr Gwen Ramokgopa is facing a R9.4m damages claim following the death of a Clubview man who had allegedly overdosed on...
Medical waste company sues KZN Health over termination of contract
A medical waste company has hauled KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo to court over the termination of a multimillion-rand contract to dispose of body...
Gilead faces personal injury suit for not rectifying HIV-drug's alleged defect
Forty-one patients from 12 states in the US who are living with HIV or Aids or were on PrEP have filed a personal injury...
US files first criminal charges against pharma in opioid epidemic case
The US government filed its first criminal charges against a major drug distributor and company executives over their alleged roles in fuelling the nation’s...
High Court rejects gynae's appeal against 5-years' jail for deadly negligence
The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has confirmed the conviction and sentence of five years direct imprisonment for Dr Danie van der Walt, a gynaecologist...
Mother turns to HRC over marking system after son fails Wits medicine
A mother has gone to the Human Rights Commission in a bid to keep her son in medical school at the University of the...
Limpopo GP sued over incorrect HIV diagnosis
The GP firm PM de Kock and Partners in Thabazimbi is being sued for R478,000, for negligence, after allegedly incorrectly diagnosinga patient with HIV.
Beeld...
KZN Health dilemma as suspended doctor returns to post that's been filled
KwaZulu-Natal Health appears to be heading for another legal showdown when the head of surgery from the strife-torn Ngwelezana Hospital returns to his job, which...