Post By: GETX LOCAL SRL
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Sad to say, medical negligence occurs daily in hospitals, clinics, and other places where healthcare is provided. It starts with an injury or an undesirable or anticipated outcome to a patient during medical care, which can include medication side effects, psychological harm or trauma, and even death. Patients and families can recover compensation for any harm resulting from negligence or substandard care. Not all injuries receive compensation, though. In India, the law of negligence has developed on both the civil and criminal front. Despite the fact that negligence is the subject of ample litigation, it hasn’t been statutorily defined.Â
The three essential components of medical negligence are duty, breach, and resulting damage. The duty of care can include specific responsibilities, such as the duty to assess, the duty to diagnose, and the duty to communicate. If a doctor acted in such a way as to have failed to adhere to a standard of reasonable care, you’re entitled to make a personal injury claim against them. Filing a lawsuit enables you to recover compensation for your injuries and deter substandard care, imposing penalties on healthcare providers who lack empathy, respect for other people’s rights, and a sense of responsibility for their actions.
All Medical Practitioners Owe A Duty Of Care To Their Patients
Certain expectations are placed on those who practice medicine, including a commitment to a minimum standard in the delivery of medical care to do good and avoid harm. Health professionals must take all appropriate measures and behave in an adequate way to reduce incidents of preventable harm to patients. The duty of care isn’t optional. Medical practitioners must step in on situations if there’s a risk. The tort law in India is the English tort law, where a defendant is only liable if that person is at fault in some way, which involves negligent, intentional, or strict liability actions. Nevertheless, the application of English law in India is selective.
In recent years, most lawsuits against physicians have been built on negligence, with the doctor’s actions being measured against tort principles. An injury in itself confers no legal right, and negligence isn’t necessarily a liability. Once fault is determined, the law makes available a private, judicially enforced remedy – more often than not, money – for specific injuries, settling accounts with the victim and deterring future negligent behavior. A patient approaching a health professional expects to be treated with all the knowledge and skill the physician possesses to relieve their medical problem. Doctor-patient relationships are based on contractual obligations and, above all, a duty of care.
What Are The Conditions For The Duty Of Care?
Due to its ability to make or break a case, the duty of care is often regarded as a control mechanism within the law, allowing the courts to draw a distinction between cases that are legally significant (and worth pursuing) and those that don’t merit legal attention. Attention must be paid to the fact that the duty of care isn’t limited to doctors but applies to everyone involved in the treatment, from nurses to the hospital itself. As a rule, when a physician participates in a patient’s care, a duty of care emerges, and this covers appointments over the phone and situations where a specialist reviews imaging reports or blood/tissue samples.
Common Examples Of Breaches Of Duty Include Misdiagnosis And Surgical Errors
Any conduct that falls below the legal standard established to protect others against the unreasonable risks of serious injury or death is blameworthy and can be an appropriate basis for civil action. Unsafe healthcare has been acknowledged as a global challenge, and much has been done to understand what can be done to enhance the safety of primary care. Even though medical practitioners work hard to provide safe and quality care, people are sometimes inadvertently harmed. Examples of when a doctor breaches their duty of care include but aren’t limited to:
- Misdiagnosis: Diagnostic errors are, unfortunately, frequent and difficult to detect and dissect because there are countless illnesses, each of which can manifest with various symptoms. Misdiagnosis is harmful because it can prevent or delay suitable treatment, leading to unnecessary harm or resulting in psychological and financial repercussions.Â
- Surgical errors: Surgery is a high-risk specialty with possible mishaps waiting to happen. Errors often originate from failures to get the message across or coordination gaps within healthcare teams, not specifically from ineptitude or ignorance. Avoidance requires efforts at a personal level, which includes training, learning, and preparation, to say nothing of understanding the human factor.Â
The extent of care and competence to which a health professional is held isn’t the highest or the lowest. The courts have accepted the Bolam test to determine whether the duty of care has been breached in the context of medical negligence, which is based on the principle that a doctor doesn’t breach the legal standard of care and isn’t negligent provided the practice is supported by the body of similar professionals.
Awards Against Doctors Are Generally Rare, And The Amount Awarded To Victims Is Low
The remedy is awarding damages, typically compensatory, covering medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering. It can’t be narrowed down to a mathematical formula. Action is in accordance with the principle that the claimant should be restored to the position they would have been in had the tort not been committed. The odds of winning a lawsuit are based on evidence, proof of error, and the impact of that breach of duty. Most cases are settled out of court due to the complexity of the subject. The Indian Consumer Protection Act created a mechanism for dispute resolution – the doctor isn’t liable for every injury suffered by the patient, even if someone would have prescribed a better treatment or operated in a different way.
Final Words
The days when the doctor-patient relationship was governed by mutual confidence and respect are long past. People are treated like commodities very frequently, even if they are the main priority, irrespective of who they are, where they come from, or what their situation is. Bringing a medical negligence claim isn’t something to be taken lightly. Litigation is expensive and time-consuming, but it might be worth the hassle.
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