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Medico-Legal
Judge slams ‘vexatious’ psychologist for stalling tactics
A psychologist in George has failed in yet another attempt to stop the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) from instituting disciplinary action...
Mother sues Western Cape Health for R38m damages
Cerebral palsy-type claims continue to drain the national Department of Health coffers, comprising nearly half of all medico-legal claims, and with the department having...
Philips forks out $1bn in device lawsuit settlements
Dutch medical device-maker Philips will pay $1.1bn to settle hundreds of personal injury lawsuits in the US over its defective sleep apnoea machines, which have...
Nurses were negligent in care of elderly patient, appeal council finds
The South African Nursing Council Appeal Authority (SANCAA) has ruled that an inquiry failed to conduct a thorough investigation into ill-treatment of an elderly...
Paraplegic SANDF paramedic fights 15 years for payout
A former SA National Defence Force employee – who lost her unborn child and was paralysed after an accident in a military vehicle crash...
KZN Health probes man’s death outside clinic
An investigation has been launched by the KwaZulu-Natal Health Department after a man was found dead in a clinic parking lot on Monday. He...
US anaesthesiologist faces 190 years after IV bag-tampering deaths
A Dallas anaesthesiologist could be looking at 190 years behind bars after being convicted last week of injecting a nerve-blocking agent and other drugs...
Pfizer and Moderna go head-to-head over Covid jab patents
The latest leg of a global legal battle began in Britain on Tuesday when Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech asked the court to...
Doctor’s HPCSA hearing over Covid vaccine comments begins
A disciplinary hearing against doctor Shankara Chetty began in Durban last week after Wits University Professor Francois Venter lodged a complaint against him with...
Corruption accused in Digital Vibes case to hear fate in May
The magistrate presiding over the corruption trial of former Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (Misa) employee Lizeka Tonjeni, accused of accepting a R160 000 bribe...
British celebrity doctor in Botox for sex hearing
A well-known TV cosmetic doctor gave free Botox to a patient in return for sex, a UK medical tribunal found, after Dr Tijion Esho,...
Dentist pleads not guilty to patient’s murder in ‘detox’ clinic
The trial of a Durban dentist, charged with murder after a patient died in his detox centre seven years ago, started in the High...
Health Ombud hamstrung by lack of funds
The Office of the Health Ombudsman is battling to resolve serious complaints against public and private health facilities because it has no money to hire investigators.
Health-e...
Discovery judgments mount amid RAF dispute
Discovery Health says it has obtained judgments totalling more than R170m since the RAF’s controversial directive not to reimburse past medical expenses where a...
New sentencing date for Dickason
Former doctor Lauren Dickason, convicted of the murder of her three daughters – and currently in custody at the psychiatric Hillmorton Hospital – will...
Court rules police raid on Gauteng pharmacy unlawful
The SA police has been ordered to return confiscated items, including cannabis products and edibles, after it unlawfully raided a pharmacy without first obtaining...
Short-lived ALS drug faces class action suit after withdrawal
The manufacturer of the world’s newest treatment approved for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often called Lou Gehrig’s disease, has withdrawn the drug from the...
HPCSA acts against unauthorised procedures, serial fraudsters …
Guilty verdicts for unauthorised procedures under anaesthetic and broken instruments during root canal, among others, were handed down by the Health Professions Council of...
US lawmaker probes FDA inspection of Musk’s Neuralink
The US Food & Drug Administration has been questioned on why it did not inspect Elon Musk’s Neuralink before allowing the brain implant company...
FDA settles Ivermectin lawsuit brought by doctors
The US Food and Drug Administration has settled a lawsuit over some of its posts about Ivermectin, including what may have been one of...
Miami surgeon faces Brazilian butt lift complaints
A US surgeon has racked up three public complaints related to his reported mishandling of aesthetic procedures, including gluteal fat grafting – also known...
Hospital liable for child’s blindness
Gauteng Health can expect to fork out millions after a court confirmed a child’s blindness resulted from negligence at a state hospital after her...
Medico-legal payouts soar countrywide
In the past four years, the National Department of Health has coughed up R23.6bn in medico-legal claims countrywide, with all provinces seemingly unable to...
Discovery's contempt case against RAF moves a step closer
A full Bench of three judges is to hear the contempt of court application brought by Discovery Health against the financially stressed Road Accident...
CMS seeks to place Netcare scheme under curatorship
In yet another clash with the healthcare industry, and following recent accusations of hostility and harassment, the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) has applied...
Fatal dental visits for two Durban children
An investigation has been opened into the deaths of two Durban children who died after dental procedures at a Pinetown facility last month on...
Bath burn victim wins R1.3m damages from Limpopo Health
A patient who was badly burned and subsequently scarred after being washed in boiling water in 2014 has been awarded almost R1.3m in compensation,...
Gauteng Health bled dry with multi-million rand medical claims
In less a year, the Gauteng Health Department paid out R623m in negligence or malpractice proceedings – and R597m to private lawyers and state...
New hearing for dismissed Covid ‘hugging’ duo
Two healthcare hospitality staff – fired for spontaneously hugging on Christmas Day 2020 after serving hospital patients – will have to wait to hear...
Judge to decide on Canadian woman‘s quest for assisted death
A Canadian man has asked a judge to block his 27-year-old daughter’s medically assisted death – originally scheduled for 1 February – arguing she lacks...
Ombud finds UK doctors' failures with Covid DNR orders
In a serious breach of human rights, British doctors made do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders for elderly and disabled patients during the pandemic without telling patients...
‘Trial by media’, murder accused paediatrician claims in court
Five years after he was arrested, renowned paediatric surgeon Peter Beale took the stand in the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) to answer to the...
Gynae in botched op legal suit now faces fraud charges
A gynaecologist appeared in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court last week facing fraud charges after a patient, Hlengiwe Mbambo, who claimed he botched her total...
Five nurses suspended amid negligence probe
Steve Biko Academic Hospital has placed five nurses on suspension after allegations of gross negligence relating to a video that involved a patient in...
UK health workers await Covid compensation hearing
Dozens of British healthcare workers with long Covid are still waiting for a High Court compensation hearing against the NHS, among others, whom they...
Triple murderer Lauren Dickason's sentencing delayed
South African doctor and convicted triple-murderer Lauren Dickason, who has been tightly guarded in a psychiatric hospital since being found guilty in August last...
Top court to decide on medical aid information disclosures
In a case that will have groundbreaking implications for medical schemes and its members, the Constitutional Court will today deliberate on the extent of...
Gauteng medico-legal claims decline
Gauteng Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said her department was winning the battle against financial mismanagement and other challenges, and had recorded a 7% decline...
Victim’s father wants Beale prosecuted ‘at all costs’, says defence lawyer
The legal team for murder-accused paediatric surgeon Peter Beale said the father of a 10-year-old boy who died after being operated on by him...
Health MEC to pay woman R4.4m after hot-water burn
Limpopo Health will have to cough up more than R4m in damages for a woman who was severely burned – and subsequently scarred –...