Not all claims result in awards, and litigation is often a personally and professionally devastating experience
Healthcare interventions, despite intended to advantage patients, cause them harm occasionally because medical practitioners fail to practice due diligence as they perform their duties for the public. Clinical errors can occur anywhere, anytime — at hospitals, doctor’s practices, facilities for care, pharmacies or patients’ homes. Negligence is an unreasonably dangerous conduct and is classified as such because the actor knew or should have known that harm might occur as a result of their actions. Damage can be recoverable in law, but the establishment of causation is a web of intrigues, often ambiguous.
Doctor–patient disputes or conflicts have aggrandized year by year
Even if medical conditions have improved, clinician-patient conflicts have increased, especially in settings that deal with chronic diseases. Misunderstandings, disagreements, impaired trust, and different expectations make it difficult, if not impossible, to establish good rapport, which is a central part of diagnostic and treatment activities. In the event of an adverse medical outcome, it’s likely patients will file a lawsuit to prevent a similar incident from happening again and obtain financial compensation to offset the actual losses, pain and suffering. Not all claims result in awards, and litigation is often a personally and professionally devastating experience.
According to the World Health Organization, one in 10 patients are harmed while receiving medical care in the African region, so there’s no justification for the considerable expenditure. Delivering the changes required to shift the narrative involves concerted effort. Claims based on instances of medical negligence have increased steadily. It must be noted that it’s not a regional issue but rather a global one. In 2022, the State Claims Agency, which solves personal injury and third-party property damage claims delegated by the Irish Government, paid out roughly €374 million in medical negligence lawsuits. Patients and physicians are dragged through what can be characterised as a brutal process.
Medical negligence comprises different types of failures, resulting in various outcomes
Given the increasingly tense doctor-patient encounters, it’s worthwhile reviewing the root causes of medical negligence to identify a targeted and effective solution. It’s an unfortunate truth that, in certain situations, negligence is due to clinical errors or a low quality of care. The health professional’s act is judged by comparison with their peers, so expert opinion is of the essence to understand how and why something went wrong or what the generally accepted standard of care is. There must be sufficient nexus between the act and the resulting damage (physical, psychological, psychosocial, etc.); otherwise, compensation is declined.
Negligence can stem from errors in diagnosis, treatment, aftercare or health management. Let’s take an example. Poor communication from medical professionals can lead to life-threatening complications, which could easily be prevented if the clinicians received proper training. Communication isn’t a nice-to-have but a strictly necessary soft skill. Hospital-acquired infections can be considered wrongdoing when the staff’s negligence causes a patient’s disease, making them severely injured or ill. The clinician-patient relationship takes the form of a contract retaining the elements of tort, meaning an individual can seek redressal of grievances.
Some experts assert that “negligence” is excessively hostile and perpetuates a blame culture, which involves attributing fault to individuals when errors occur instead of addressing systemic issues. Nevertheless, adverse events happen, and changing word usage won’t prevent or help reduce the number of injuries or deaths to patients, so healthcare professionals must be knowledgeable of the different types of negligence that can bring about a lawsuit. Getting legal advice about your situation is critical before going to court. You can get advice from a jurist like Gary Matthews, who’ll help you with your situation and needs.
The impacts of medical negligence are harmful to both providers and patients
Exposure to lawsuits has made doctors more careful in their actions and procedures to prevent negligence claims, rather than promoting the patients’ best interests, practising what is called defensive medicine (DM). It can be divided into two types of behaviour: positive DM, which involves ordering extra tests or additional visits, and negative DM, which entails passive behaviour. In many European countries, malpractice litigation is reported to happen less frequently than in the US, including but not limited to Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK. Speaking of which, legal costs in Irish medical negligence cases are among the highest in the world.
Medical negligence can affect almost every aspect of a person’s life, generating physical and emotional damage, not to mention serious financial hardship. It particularly harms patients who are deterred physically, mentally, socially, and financially. Nobody wants an ill outcome for a patient, and doctors do their best to prevent injuries, including those that cause death, but they’re fallible. There are two reasons why they might fail. One is ignorance, i.e., a limited understanding of the physical laws and conditions that apply to the problem, and the other is ineptitude, which translates into the fact that knowledge exists, but the physician doesn’t apply it properly.
The takeaway
In public healthcare, medical negligence devours substantial resources, threatening the sustainability of critical services and harming many other patients who are left without care. Irrespective of the verdict, lawsuits illustrate the flaws in the medical system, which keep some away from the doctor’s office. While people haven’t totally given up on the system, in spite of their frustrations, new rules are necessary to redesign and improve care, so it’s a good idea to concentrate on patients’ feedback on the quality and effectiveness of treatment processes.
Primary prevention consists of developing quality improvement plans to address the areas where healthcare doesn’t meet the standards. By contrast, secondary prevention comes down to managing complaints and reaching out to harmed individuals, slowly but surely moving from a culture of blame to one of learning. It’s challenging but, nonetheless, rewarding. Health organisations must build capacity in the form of management capabilities to achieve a just culture focused on the prevention of harm. Solving problems doesn’t happen overnight.
All things considered, health professionals don’t get it right all the time. Physicians can make minor mistakes that don’t cause any harm, but more serious ones can be catastrophic.