When a patient is admitted in the hospital, a contractual obligation is established (though not written in words) whereby the hospital is obliged to give to the patient all the benefits of its facilities, and staff have to exercise “reasonable skill and care” in looking after him or her.
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It is in the deviation from these norms of reasonable patient care, established over a period of time that the law of torts comes into the fore.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
It is an unedifying fact that we have no detailed and accurate recorded data on the occurrence and incidence of misadventures in drug administration, diagnostic procedures, and surgical operation in hospitals.
In a complex hospital, negligence becomes “error”, scientific detachment and incompetence becomes a “lack of the specialised equipment”.
Medicine is still not an exact science in spite of great advances in biomedical sciences.
It is imperative for doctors, nurses and paramedical personnel to exhibit utmost precaution, care, judgement and skill in dealing with and treating patients, balancing the relative risk of the disease with the risk involved in the use of drugs, surgery or diagnostic procedures.
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A medicolegal problem can be defined as any matter of interest to legal authorities in connection with any aspect of patient care. Therefore, any situation where there is an allegation, confession or suspicion of causes attributing to bodily injury or danger to life, is a medicolegal problem.
Negligence is a tort, i.e. a wrong done by one person to another. Medical negligence has been defined as “a mistake by a medical practitioner whom no reasonably competent and careful practitioner would have committed.”
1. Reasonable Skill:
Of every medical practitioner, a nurse and technician, a certain degree of skill is expected comparable to the average skill of his or her professional brethren of the same standing, and concomitant with the current state of medical knowledge and technique
He can adapt any currently accepted technique of diagnosis and treatment in which he honestly believes. A specialist in a particular field is expected to possess special degree of knowledge and skill of his specialty as against the average skill expected of general practitioner.
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A doctor cannot be held negligent simply because something went wrong. He is liable only when he falls below the standard of a reasonable competent practitioner is his field so much so that his conduct is inexcusable.
2. Reasonable Care:
Reasonable care comprises of proper prescribing of medicines in appropriate dosages, correct dispensing, and correct use of instruments and appliances, and proper nursing care.
Reasonable care would also involve resorting to consultations with senior colleagues or specialists in difficult cases or when in doubt.
“The practitioner must bring to his task a reasonable degree of skill and knowledge, and must -exercise a reasonable degree of care.
Neither the very highest nor a very low degree of care and competence judged in the light of the particular circumstances of each case is what the law requires.
Failure to act in accordance with the standard of reasonably competent medical person at the time is a perfectly accurate statement, as long as it is remembered that there may be one or more perfectly proper standards, and if a medical person conforms to one of those proper standards then he is not negligent”.
Professional negligence results from lack of reasonable care and skill or by willful negligence on the part of a medical practitioner, nurses or a medical technician in the care of a patient so as to lead to his bodily injury or to loss of life.
In order to bring a successful claim for compensation against a doctor (or hospital) in a court, the patient must prove negligence.
Additionally, the patient must also prove that the negligence of the doctor (or hospital) caused his injury, disability or death. Medical negligence may take following forms.
1. Negligent diagnosis
2. Negligent operation or surgical procedure
3. Negligent recording of patient’s complaint
4. Administering a wrong drug or injection
5. Failure to advice a patient of the risk of an operation, if there is such a risk
6. Failure to monitoring patient’s condition
7. Improper or malfunctioning equipment
8. Inadequate nursing supervision and staffing
9. Negligent administration of an injection wrong injection, wrong patient, intravenous instead of intramuscular or vice versa.
10. Leaving a swab or instrument inside patients body during operation
11. Failure to obtain informed consent from patient
12. Failure to protect a patient from the risk of an infection.