Can you sue a doctor or nurse for a wrong diagnosis or medical treatment?

Can you sue a doctor or a nurse for a wrong diagnosis or medical treatment?

The work of doctors has to do with precious lives hence there is no room for errors. One such error of a medical doctor is the wrong diagnosis.

What is wrong diagnosis/ misdiagnosis?

If a medical professional such as a doctor in diagnosing a patient suffering a medical discomfort fails to make the right professional judgment as to what is wrong medically with the client then he or she has done a wrong diagnosis.

The professional may fail to spot the right issue or even give the wrong treatment to the patient.

For the purposes of education, we shall include other medical staff at health facilities such as the nurses in this important topic.

Negligence and medical malpractices can make you sue a medical doctor or a nurse. The reasons for the legal path may include but are not limited to failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis, the health professionals misreading medical information or ignoring laboratory results or failing to read the laboratory results accurately, undertaking unnecessary surgery, or committing surgical errors or doing a wrong-site surgery.

In the US and UK wrong diagnosis or misdiagnosis is a big thing and can lead to lawsuits.

The patient or his or her benefactors can sue the medical facility and the medical officer for compensation.

A doctor leaving a surgical tool in a patient after the surgery, treating the wrong illness, detecting a wrong medical condition for a patient, and all forms of the negligence of health professionals can put them in serious trouble.

Doctors are always dealing with the lives of patients who report to health facilities for medical care and any error by medical officers can lead to loss of precious lives and or complicate the medical condition of the patient.

Can you sue a doctor for the wrong diagnosis?

Yes, a patient or his or her benefactors can sue a doctor for wrong diagnosis or misdiagnosis.

The suit falls into the medical malpractice legal category of personal injury law. It is worth knowing that, Personal injury cases are civil cases and not criminal.

This means that an aggrieved party may have to set the personal injury law in motion to get the necessary compensation for negligence or wrong diagnosis as a civil case.

In 2020, Mohammed Mustapha sued the Ridge Hospital in Accra and sought a GH¢5 million in compensation for the death of the wife.

The wife of the plaintiff Akua Nyarko Osei-Bonsu lost her life on 31st December 2021.

His suit was to compensate for the loss and the associated trauma that he endured.

What happens if a doctor gives the wrong diagnosis?

There have been instances in medical practice that doctors have given the wrong diagnosis.

In some instances, the poor professional judgment of the doctor worsened the case of the patient and the event led to death. The negligence of a doctor, nurse, or medical facility or wrong diagnosis if established by a court of competent jurisdiction gives can be expensive for the unsuccessful defendant.

The question is how many people ever sue the medical facility or a health worker for negligence or wrong diagnosis? Many continue to lose their lives, suffer worsened medical conditions for life, and even lose their ability to work again, walk again, or even speak again because of poor professional judgment of medical officers in the line of duty.

If a doctor fails to make an accurate and timely diagnosis of a harmful medical condition, a patient might be able to pursue a legal remedy by filing a medical malpractice lawsuit. A wrong professional decision can kill the patient; make him or her unable to work, or some other loss.

How much can you sue for misdiagnosis?

In California, US, the California Civil Code 3333.2  can award damages up to $250,000 on non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits through the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA), which California voters passed in 1975.

The efficiency and level of maturity of the legal system in a country or state play a critical role in the ability of patients who suffer from the wrong diagnosis by a medical doctor to get a judgment in his or her favour and sufficient compensation or damages awarded by the court.

Claims of Mohammed Mustapha, in his suit against Ridge Hospital in Accra

In his statement of claim, the plaintiff said his wife started her antenatal care at the hospital in July 2019 at about 12 weeks into the pregnancy and was seen routinely until November 20, 2019 when she was asked to bring a scan on a complaint she made.

After submitting the scan, the hospital requested for a doppler scan to also be conducted and submitted on a later date. The doppler scan was delivered on December 13, 2019, as requested.

Plaintiff said on the same day his wife was diagnosed with severe Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR), with an Abnormal Umbilical Artery Doppler, a condition which pointed to placental insufficiency.

Based on the diagnosis, his wife was scheduled for an emergency Caesarean section which was conducted on December 16, 2019.

According to the plaintiff, notwithstanding the Caesarean section, the baby did not survive and within or about 24 hours after the Caesarean section was done, the woman developed a condition called thromboembolism which led to her death.

“The development of thromboembolism was as a result of the negligence of the hospital from the breach of the duty of care owed to the deceased by the hospital and its agents/staff,” the plaintiff submitted.

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Particulars of negligence

Plaintiff said as part of the hospital’s standard protocols prior to the conduct of operation of such nature, the hospital was to develop a pre-operation and post-operation management plan which contained every step or activity and medication that must be administered to the patient before and after the operation was conducted.

He said although he (plaintiff) was compelled to procure an anticoagulant before the surgery, the hospital failed to apply the same to his wife, thereby breaching the hospital’s own protocols.

“The fourth defendant (the Greater Accra Regional Hospital) is, by its own protocols or standard practice, expected or required to administer to every patient who undergoes Caesarean section prophylactic anticoagulant therapy after 12 hours of the Caesarean section.

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“That although the fourth defendant’s own protocols or standard practice demands that every patient who undergoes Caesarean section is given a prophylactic anticoagulant therapy 12 hours after the surgery, the fourth defendant did not even include this therapy in the management plan of the patient. That the failure of duty on the part of the fourth defendant invariably led to the death of the patient,” the plaintiff stated.

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In a similar case, a lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Languages, Dr. Emmanuel Kuto, also told the Daily Graphic that his wife died at the hospital last month and he suspected that it resulted from the negligence of a doctor who attended to her.

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Ridge Hospital Reacts

Responding to allegations of negligence, the Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Emmanuel K Srofenyoh, told the Daily Graphic in an interview last Friday, July 3, 2020, that staff of the hospital was committed professionals who conducted their work according to the ethics of the medical profession and could, therefore, not admit to the accusation of medical negligence leveled against any of them.

Will you sue a doctor for a wrong diagnosis?

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Source: Ghana Education News |2022 Health Stories