Liability in Medical Mal
There are so many instances I can recall of waiting in a hospital for a nurse only to be left waiting hours and sometimes even days! The case of Milne v. St. Joseph’s Health Centre, [2009] O.J. No. 4004 was discussed in the Lawyers Weekly.
In Milne both a nurse and a resident doctor were found liable for a pregnant patient who had suffered an abruption that caused her baby to suffer catastrophic brain damage.
The Judge was convinced that had the delay in delivery caused by the nurse and resident not occurred the baby would have been born normal.
The Lawyers Weekly reported the following:
The lesson from Milne is that medical team members must clearly communicate their impressions and their plans of action. Failure to do so undermines the “team” approach essential to patient care. In the setting of a medical emergency, assumptions can have tragic consequences for patients and will offer little defence at trial to nurses and doctors who make them.
This is a significant win for the Plaintiff. Generally in medical malpractice suits the Defendants being doctors, hospitals and nurses tend to take an aggressive approach to intimidate Plaintiff’s. Also, the costs of a medical malpractice suit are significantly more expensive.
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