Fight medical negligence with the law

Stories of people going to hospital for routine procedures or medical conditions that are not normally life threatening but were mistreated and lost their lives as a result are rife in Nigeria, especially due to misdiagnosis or misdiagnosis and the resulting mistreatment or medication .

And the sad reality is that going to a large and acclimatized expensive specialist hospital does not make you immune to this because of the peculiarity of the challenges facing the Nigerian health sector; brain drain, poor power supply, underfunding, lack of equipment and poor staffing, as well as poor pay.

But despite these challenges, some problems are mainly caused by human error, negligence and lack of proper care by hospital staff. For such cases, the law has made provisions for medical negligence by bringing charges against the perpetrators or against the hospital itself.

And under the law, you can only sue a doctor for negligence if you are the victim of a medical error. But when the mistake has cost the life of the victim or a child, the law allows the parents or next of kin to claim compensation.

As a result, all doctors involved in care and misdiagnosis or negligence; doctors, nurses, dentists, opticians, ophthalmologists, laboratory scientists and all other medical professionals saddled with the burden of caring for patients can be sued.

You can claim compensation for medical negligence when you allege that a family member has suffered some harm as a result of the act complained of.

You also have a period of three years; depending on your state to seek damages for medical negligence and the court will consider factors such as age, severity of injury, employment status and associated losses caused as a result of the negligent treatment when determining the amount of damages a person can recover to get.

The first step to take when this happens is to notify an attorney to review your case and tell you if you have a case worth pursuing and what compensation is available under the law.

Nigerians should know their rights and stop burying cases of medical negligence without the perpetrator being held accountable.

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