A tragic death linked to the law on abortion in Eire was reported by the media this week. Praveen Halappanavar says that his wife, 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar, died a painful death in University Hospital Galway after being ‘refused’ an abortion during the miscarriage she was suffering.
According to the Daily Mail, the husband was told by hospital staff that Ireland is a ‘Catholic country’ and birth cannot be induced while there is still a foetal heart-beat, even though his wife was in difficulties.
The increased use of no-win, no-fee solicitors has meant that a growing number of NHS patients have brought medical negligence claims against medical practitioners. The increase has been so sharp that the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, has decided to give the NHS Litigation Authority access to significantly more financial resources in order for it to be able to pay out compensation.
According to the Times, “In the past five years the number of claims for clinical negligence have risen from 5,697 to 8,655 a year”. NHS managers and the Ministry of Justice attributes this trend to the increased use of no-win, no-fee solicitors and the fact that many patients are encouraged to sue for medical negligence. (more…)
A 63-year-old former paramedic is seeking personal injury compensation after an NHS surgeon accidentally removed the wrong part of his brain during a tumour biopsy operation.
John Tunney had the operation after a tumour in his pituitary gland was discovered by a scan. However, the surgeon at Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry, removed healthy tissue instead of the tumour, leaving Mr Tunney partially sighted and in constant need of care. (more…)
A woman from Godstone, Surrey, has been awarded £6m in personal injury compensation after a facelift in 2003 left her with permanent nerve damage and caused her business to collapse.
Penny Johnstone sued plastic surgeon Mr Le Roux Fourie for carrying out an “experimental surgery” that left her face “constantly contracting”. (more…)
Medical negligence, or malpractice, is professional negligence by a health care provider in which the provided treatment is below the standard of practice and causes death or injury to the patient.
In this part of the blog we’ll cover interesting and major medical negligence cases in the news, as well as developments in the law.
