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Medico-Legal
Traditional leaders demands legal action on initiate deaths
The Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders is demanding the law to be tightened to deal with those responsible for deaths of initiates in...
Christmas Day staffing failure costs Gauteng Health R17m
A mother who gave birth to a premature baby because unskilled nursing staff and doctors were on duty on Christmas Day seven years ago...
Jehovah's Witness parents may contest interim blood transfusion order
The parents of three children who require blood transfusions should their conditions deteriorate are expected to file opposing papers against an interim order extended...
First listeriosis class action claims may be paid out in 2020
The first claims associated with the listeriosis class action could be paid out in mid to late 2020 at the earliest. City Press reports...
GEMS backs down and agrees to cover patient's Keytruda treatment
A medical doctor's court battle to get the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) to pay for his cancer treatment has ended after the expensive...
Eastern Cape Health claims 3x Health Dept's entire budget
The Eastern Cape's medical legal claims are three times more than the Health Department’s entire operational budget, the auditor-general has revealed. According to a...
Tiger Brands not opposing listeriosis litigation being certified as class action
Lawyers representing victims of the listeriosis outbreak will approach the South Gauteng High Court to certify the litigation as a class action. Tiger Brands,...
Huntington's disease case could change patient confidentiality rules
Lawyers are bringing a case against a London hospital trust that could trigger major changes to the rules governing patient confidentiality, reports The Guardian....
Implant investigation shows costs of poor regulation and testing
The Prolift vaginal mesh implant was launched despite the company being warned it could shrink and harden inside the body, according to an international...
KZN Health's medical negligence claims spiralling out of control
Medical negligence claims against KZN Health continue to mount, with the department having exceeded its total budget in just six months of this financial...
R5.1m lawsuit after migraine injection goes wrong
An injection in the neck to alleviate excruciating migraines, which caused a woman to suffer from partial tetraplegia has resulted in a R5.1m negligence claim...
GP’s injection left patient with unsightly scar and ‘fear of doctors'
A Pretoria general practitioner was ordered to pay R100,000 damages to a patient who was left with an unsightly painful scar on her buttock...
Criminal charges laid against four public health sector heads
Lobby group AfriForum has opened criminal cases against four public health sector heads of department in a national bid to curb the "misuse of...
Mother compensated for negligence leading to neonate death
A mother whose baby died two days after he was born following negligent medical treatment by Eastern Cape hospital staff will be paid R276,000...
Widespread opposition to Bill on lump-sum negligence payouts
The South African government’s latest proposals for containing the growing financial burden posed by medical negligence claims against the state are ill-conceived, unconstitutional, and...
Most UK doctors fearful of prescribing cannabis despite law change
Despite the law change on 1 November, few patients in the UK will be able to access medicinal cannabis because the legal implications of...
Charges withdrawn against some UKZN 'selling places' accused
Charges against three people accused of corruption for allegedly "selling places" at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Medical School, have been provisionally withdrawn. News24 reports...
Defence ministry to pay R10.1m for botched knee operation
The Ministry of Defence has been ordered to pay R10.1m in damages to an injured one-time promising rugby player who was earmarked to play...
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,...