Doctors sued by patients, insurance companies sued by doctors and doctors sued by insurance companies; nowadays, this is the prevailing situation in the Health care industry. Greater responsibility or the lack of it, rather than negligence is implicated by the word “malpractice”. In the US a specific medical malpractice law is in force to bring justice to the patients. In UK, a doctor will be liable only when proved to have not acted in accordance with the medical body’s opinion. In a lengthy and complicated battle, patients who feel that they are treated wrongly or given misinformation about illness can approach the law for compensation.
Every year, thousands of people are facing death due to medical errors which can be prevented with little bit of effort. Instead of reforming the medical system to prevent these pointless injuries and deaths, the rights of injured persons to get full recovery from the law is being limited by the efforts of insurance companies and doctors.
Even clinics, hospitals or medical corporations can be sued for the mistakes committed by their employees under “vicarious liability”. We associate the expression “medical malpractice” with doctors in general but in can be caused by any medical service provider such as nurses, therapists and dentists.
The patient who suffers damages due to medical malpractice should prove that the doctor or any other medical service provider failed to do what a prudent health care provider in a similar field would have done under similar or same circumstances. Because of this breach, the patient suffered damage or loss and fairly reasonably the defendant should pay for the damages caused by malpractice.
Medical malpractice claims are filed nearly ten times less frequently in Great Britain than they are in America. Compared to American patients, the British patients normally adopt a less adversarial stance towards medical malpractice.
It is mostly patients taking treatment through NHS that normally complain about not getting correct medical treatment, environment and building where healthcare is provided, lack of or incorrect information, inordinate delay and staff behaviour. These types of complaints should be lodged within six months from the time of treatment.
To end on a lighter note, a cancer victim who was told that he is expected to live only 3 more months, gave up his well paying job and prepared himself to face the impending death. (Un)fortunately, he outlived all the predictions and sued the hospital claiming compensation for the loss of his well paid job. A medical association spokesman found this astonishing and commented that people these days sue for anything!!
