Gauteng’s health MEC has lost a negligence case to a mother whose three-year-old, admitted for seizures, was burned by a heater while under the care of nurses at the Tambo Memorial Hospital, Boksburg, in 2017.
The incident happened after the mother had briefly left the hospital to go home and bath. News24 reports that when she returned, she found her daughter’s leg had been burned and bandaged.
According to court papers, the staff said she was burnt by a wall-mounted heater when she attempted to climb out of the window to leave the ward.
Gauteng High Court Acting Judge Y Carrim said the matter was certified trial-ready on 8 August 2022 when an order was made to separate the merits from the quantum of the plaintiff’s claims.
Judgment on the merits was delivered on 15 May.
A year ago, the provincial department confirmed it faced medico-legal claims worth R1.6bn due to alleged medical negligence.
“After several attempts to settle the matter, the parties came before me last week on an agreed-stated case regarding Uniform Rule 33,” said the judge. “I find that the conduct of the staff and employees of the defendant (Gauteng Health MEC) was negligent.”
She ordered that the defendant was liable for 100% of the damages suffered by the child, and for all reasonable costs incurred by the mother to obtain medico-legal reports from Dr Nosipho Maponya, a paediatrician, including consultation, preparation and participation in meetings regarding the determination of the claim.
Maponya said the child was locked alone in the ward, and then started crying. Looking for her mother, she tried to climb out of the window because the doors were locked.
She concluded that the child’s burn and keloid formation resulted from negligent medical staff, and recommended the child be referred to a plastic and reconstruction surgeon to manage and reconstruct the scar and keloid formations. She also recommended that the family be referred to a psychologist to manage the post-traumatic disorder after the burn incident.
However, the MEC’s office disputed that the staff were negligent.
They argued that the injuries were because the little girl attempted to climb out of the window, which was not foreseeable.
Carrim said it was common knowledge children that were likely to become distressed when separated from their mothers.
“More so, a child who had suffered the recent trauma of a seizure was now placed in unfamiliar and strange surroundings and whose mother had just left her.
“In my view, the medical staff, who are purportedly trained to take care of patients, especially minor ones, could reasonably have foreseen that the toddler would at some point start looking or crying for her mother.”
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