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Medico-Legal
Botswana clarifies limits of prescription in medical negligence
The Botswana Court of Appeal, in the case of GMJ v Attorney General has issued a decision upholding an appeal against the decision of...
Court approves blood transfusion over home therapy
The life of a five-year-old Durban boy has been saved after his paediatrician went to court to approve a life-saving blood transfusion for him...
Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie settle in TriCor kickback case
Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie Inc will pay a total of $25m to resolve allegations that Abbott paid kickbacks to doctors in exchange for prescribing...
Medical scheme curator defies High Court judgment
Despite a High Court judgment ordering her immediate removal, the provisional curator of Samwumed has refused to step down until her application for leave...
Black lung disease class action against SA mining
The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference is supporting a class action suit against cola mining companies over pneumoconiosis, also called black lung disease.
“I have...
Nursing failures fuel claims against private hospitals — Stellenbosch study
The failure of nurses at private hospitals to follow guidelines, as well as poor monitoring of patients, lies behind rocketing liability claims, according to...
Ousted Sawumed curator appeals removal
Duduza Khosana, the ousted provisional curator of Samwumed, a medical aid scheme for local government employees, has lodged an application for leave to appeal...
A win for J&J over asbestos contamination in talc causing cancer
A New Jersey jury has cleared Johnson & Johnson (J&J) of liability in a case involving a woman who alleged that the company’s talc-based...
'Discrimination' appeal puts CMS spotlight on obesity surcharge
A Council for Medical Schemes appeal accusing Spectramed of discrimination has spotlighted the 50% surcharge that that surgeons and anaesthetists can levy when operating...
Spendthrift medical scheme curator removed
A High Court judge has removed the provisional curator of medical scheme Samwumed, who he found was incurring "exorbitant" and "unproductive" expenses that were...
Spanish doctor who stole new-born babies is let off
A Madrid court has let off a former doctor over stealing new-born babies from their mothers and supplying them to infertile couples. According to...
Supreme Court judgment important for covering doctors
The ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal ordering a Durban gynaecologist Dr and Life Healthcare Group to pay R20m for medical negligence, contains...
R20m negligence award against Life Healthcare and KZN gynaecologist
Eleven hours of waiting and a total of four phone calls‚ including three from nurses reporting a reduction in the speed of a foetal...
Johannesburg psychologist pleads guilty to medical aid fraud
A health care practitioner has been convicted and sentenced for defrauding the second-largest open medical aid scheme of R87,000. The Star reports that Johannesburg...
Mpumalanga Health sued after psychiatric patient dies in accident
A Mpumalanga woman has instituted a R1m damages claim against the health minister and Mpumalanga Health MEC after her son, a psychiatric patient, was hit...
Hospital 'detention' for unpaid medical bills a growing issue
Refusing to discharge from hospital patients who have failed to pay their medical bills is increasingly resorted to in many countries. The Kenyan High...
Malpractice costs put SA's doctors on the defensive
The increase in malpractice claims has increased the practise of defensive medicine by South African doctors, as well as fuelling a rise in premiums,...
Right-to-die doctor could face multiple murder charges
The arrest for murder of Professor Sean Davison, a medical doctor and founder of Dignity SA, five years after the assisted death of quadriplegic, Dr Anrich Burger,...
Court slashes large contingency fees in EC Health and RAF lawsuit
Attorney Zuko Nonxuba and advocate Ian Dutton who acted for a severely disabled man in a lawsuit against Eastern Cape Health and the Road...
UK ruling will see Gilead lose protections for HIV drug
Pharmaceuticals company Gilead is set to lose intellectual property rights for a drug it developed to treat HIV, freeing other drugs companies to launch...
US CDC's local chief gets bail because of SA's bad prison hygiene
US Centres for Disease Control boss Dr Alfred Bere has been granted R100,000 bail after saying he would “most likely” contract diseases in South...
Battle to control R1.2bn municipal medical aid back in court
The battle to control the beleagured South African Municipal Workers Medical Scheme, with more than R1.2bn in its coffers and more than 80,000 members,...
Gauteng specialist gets suspended jail sentence for culpable homicide
A specialist physician has been sentenced to six years imprisonment – suspended for five years – for culpable homicide after he bungled a procedure...
Namibian ruling on registration has implications for expert witnesses
A Namibian court has ruled on whether a SA-registered psychologist also needs to be registered with the Social Work and Psychology Council of Namibia in order to testify as...
EMS regulations could curb 'fly-by-night' ambulance operators
The proposed implementation of the Emergency Medical Services Regulations 2017, which seeks to bring ‘stability’ to the sector, could be the answer to ‘fly-by-night’...
SA branch chief of the US Centres for Disease Control arrested for fraud
Zimbabwe-born US citizen and virologist Dr Alfred Bere, South African branch chief at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, was arrested by...
Submissions invited on medical negligence payments Bill
The State Liability Amendment Bill, aimed at reducing lump sum payments by medical schemes in medical negligence cases, has finally made its way to...
Pretoria audiologist gets 5-year prison for medical aid fraud
Audiologist and speech therapist Wandile Theophilus Mashego has been sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of 259 counts of medical aid...
GMC grossly mishandled junior doctor case — UK doctors
Hospital doctors in the UK have told the CEO of the General Medical Council (GMC) his position is “untenable” after his handling of the...
US opioid manufacturers feel the heat over 'deceptive marketing'
Opioid manufacturers are being inundated with lawsuits in the US, accusing the drug-makers of pushing addictive painkillers through deceptive marketing, with President Donald Trump raising...
Gauteng Health legal unit spends R94m on private lawyers
Gauteng Health spent R94m on private legal firms in the past year because its own legal unit could not cope. The Citizen reports that...
Baby-swop mother has to attach 400 Gauteng Health desks and chairs
A mother whose baby girl was swopped with a boy in the Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg eight years ago had to attach 400...
UK's NHS took years to phase out killer sub-standard syringe pumps
At least nine people died in the UK because the National Health Service (NHS) used syringe pumps that did not meet internationally approved safety...
North West doctor loses bid to practice pending HPCSA hearing
A North West doctor under investigation by the Health Professions Council (HPCSA) after a baby girl and two other patients died, has lost his...
Legal action threatened over fertility services to UK transgenders
The UK equality watchdog has threatened the National Health Service with legal action if it does not offer transgender patients access to fertility services, reports...
Medical malpractice 'cartel' cost SA least R60bn – Motsoaledi
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) is investigating a long-running medical malpractice scam involving collusion between law firms and state attorneys that has cost government...
UK organ donation law to change to 'presumed consent'
The UK is to go ahead with a change to organ donation rules that means most people will be presumed to have given consent for...
Judges no longer have to rule on vegetative state decisions in the UK
Judges in the UK will no longer need to be consulted when doctors and relatives of patients in a vegetative or minimally conscious state...
Online GPs evade regulation by contracting offshore doctors
The UK’s health care regulator is calling for greater powers to protect patients from online GPs that are able avoid regulation by contracting doctors...
Netherlands euthanasia doctor may face criminal charges
A doctor is under criminal investigation over a potential breach of Dutch euthanasia laws after slipping a sleeping drug into a woman’s coffee and...