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Medico-Legal
Prosecution for endangerment not supported by science
The prosecution of HIV positive people for deliberately infecting or endangering others is often not supported by science, according to 20 top scientists including...
Proposed 'pay as you go' compensation system badly flawed, argue experts
Draft legislation for a "pay as you go" system to compensate victims of state medical negligence are badly framed and will force patients back to...
Landmark suit against Monsanto over cancer allegations
A landmark suit against Monsanto about the alleged cancer risks of the company’s popular weedkiller, Roundup, has started in San Francisco. Thousands have brought...
Bill seeks to provide legal certainty over 'living wills'
A National Health Amendment Bill to be tabled in Parliament soon will seek to provide for "legal recognition, legal certainty and legal enforceability regarding...
Former rugby player sues doctor for R45m loss of earnings
Former Blue Bulls prop Morné Mellett (28) has issued summons for R45m against a team doctor, Herman Rossouw and the Blue Bulls Company for...
A flash flood swallowed my invoices and other medical tall tales
The National Healthcare Professionals Association last year launched a Pretoria High Court action regarding the withholding of payments to doctors. In response, medical scheme...
Health Dept: Vets ‘lack knowledge on dispensing medicine'
The SA Veterinary Association (Sava), which represents 1,977 vets across the country, has argued in papers filed in the Constitutional Court that Parliament cut...
Health MEC: Doctors and nurses will be held personally liable for negligence
Gauteng Health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa says her department has established legal ways to hold health workers personally liable for medical negligence but National Education,...
Jury awards $4.7bn pay-out to women using J&J talc products
Johnson & Johnson, which is battling 9,000 legal cases involving its signature baby powder, has been ordered to pay $4.7bn in damages to 22...
Woman wins negligence claim against Bloem chemist over injections
All she wanted was to lose a few kilograms‚ but the injections that were part of a Bloemfontein woman’s diet plan left her with...
ASA rejects doctor's complaint over TV ad on relieving cold symptoms
Children won’t drown when they are rinsing their noses to clear debris or mucus‚ the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled following a doctor’s...
University Free State HOD challenges CMSA findings on 'leaked' exam questions
The head of the obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Free Stateis appealing an 'ambiguous and inconclusive' report by the Colleges of Medicine...
Missouri Appeals Court throws out ovarian cancer verdict against J&J
A Missouri Appeals Court has thrown out a $55m verdict against Johnson & Johnson in a lawsuit by a woman who claimed she developed...
Periodic payments in medico-legal claims welcome, but must be extended
Legislative amendments in reaction to the financial burden medical malpractice claims present for the State, should apply also to the private sector, writes Donald...
Doctor who hid his HIV status gets 1-year jail sentence
A UK National Health Service (NHS) surgeon who kept his HIV infection secret because he feared he would be stigmatised triggered a nationwide search...
Major Australian inquiry into gynaecologist's decades of misconduct
Health authorities in Australia have launched a major inquiry into a disgraced gynaecologist who mutilated and performed unnecessary operations on dozens of women over...
Almost 50 years on, Spanish doctor on trial in 'stolen babies' scandal
An 85-year-old Spanish gynaecologist is on trial, accused of abducting a baby in 1969 and giving her away, the first person prosecuted for the...
Credibility of expert witness challenged in Rohde murder trial
The State called into question the credibility of defence forensic pathologist Dr Reggie Perumal in the Western Cape High Court, referring to two previous...
Employees, lawyers in medical negligence scam – Free State MEC
Free State Health claims to have uncovered a "scam" involving employees and lawyers sifting through patient files to identify possible medical negligence claims, reports Netwerk24.
Dr David...
Prof Noakes wins tweeting case appeal
Banting advocate Professor Tim Noakes has won his case at the Health Profession’s Council of SA‚ four years after he tweeted that a mother...
Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape face R10.9bn in medical negligence claims
Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape face medical negligence claims of more than R10bn, Parliament has been told.
The Mpumalanga Health Department faces medical negligence claims...
NC Health facing R48.9m medical negligence suit
The Northern Cape Health Department is facing a R48.9m medical negligence lawsuit after a child was born with severe brain damage at Manne Dipico...
NHS patient deaths to be investigated by medical examiners
Medical examiners in the UK will investigate patient deaths in the National Health Service (NHS) as part of changes to improve patient safety and...
Nigerian president need not reveal his medical treatment costs
Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari does not have to reveal the cost of his treatment for an undisclosed illness that incapacitated him for several months,...
Primarily for hungry litigators, but of help to the practitioner
Medical Malpractice in South Africa will be of great assistance to the 'reasonable doctor', writes reviewer Dr Liz Meyer, a medico-legal adviser for Ethiqal....
SA’s medical negligence Bill 'unfair' and 'endangers patients’
The SA government's proposed 'pay as you go' legislation for dealing with medical negligence claims against the state may prejudice patients by limiting their choices...
Victims sue Gambia's former president for fake HIV/Aids cure
Three victims of a fake HIV/Aids cure created by Gambia’s former president have sued for damages, in the first case against Yahya Jammeh to...
R21m malpractice suit against Netcare and Pretoria practitioners
Various doctors, including a specialist and the Netcare Group, face a lawsuit of more than R21m from a couple whose baby son was admitted...
HPCSA accused of dragging its heels over complaint against doctor
"Give your two-year-old the smack of her life, a good dose of Stopayne and don’t call me in the morning". A Sunday Times reports...
Municipal workers' medical scheme place under administration
The South African Municipal Workers Union Medical Scheme (Samwumed) has been placed under provisional curatorship due to a factional battle. Business Day reports that...
Limpopo Health has lion’s share of province's R7.6bn in legal claims
Limpopo Health has seen the number of cases against it increase by 179 to 831 in the past two years, most for medical negligence.
Limpopo...
UK gynaecologist before medical tribunal after bungled delivery decapitates baby
An unborn baby was decapitated in his mother’s womb as a result of a bungled delivery by an UK National Health Service (NHS) consultant...
Class action settlement reached for miners with silicosis and/or TB
The Legal Resources Centre (LRC), Abrahams Kiewitz Attorneys and Richard Spoor Attorneys, on behalf of thousands of mineworkers, have reached a class action settlement...
HSF analyses legal basis of Esidimeni arbitration awards
Michelle Toxopeüs, legal researcher at the Helen Suzman Foundation has released a brief analysing the legal basis for granting R1.2m in damages to each...
Independent results confirm listeriosis source at Tiger Brands facility
Tiger Brands, which faces two class action lawsuits over a listeria outbreak that has killed almost 200 people, has announced that results from an...
Long-delayed inquiry into NHS contaminated blood starts at last
A UK High Court judge is starting work as the chair of a public inquiry into the biggest treatment scandal in National Health Service...
Buthelezi EMS contracts in North West and Free State to be investigated
Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has asked the Treasury Department to investigate the procurement of ambulance services from Buthelezi EMS, a controversial private ambulance...
WHO dismay at SA's failure to enact health regulations Bills
The World Health Organisation has used 'coded diplomatic language' to express alarm at the failure of a 'misdirected and paralytic' SA Parliament to enact...
Some vaginal mesh victims sucked into money-making litigation
Jerri Plummer was at home in Arkansas, watching television with her three children, when a stranger called to warn that her life was in...
US court strikes down drug-maker price-regulation law
A US federal appeals court has declared unconstitutional a 2017 Maryland law that lets the state attorney general sue generic drug-makers who sharply raise...