“Expert witnesses are required to establish Medical negligence” Dayo Faduyile, NMA President
– Steve Ovirih.
The President of The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr Dayo Francis Faduyile has reiterated the fact that there are steps to be taken before a Prema facie case of professional negligence can be established against a medical doctor in Nigeria. He said the claimant wishing to establish Medical
negligence against a medical professional should endeavor to always pass their claims in a sworn affidavit to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCOUN) , where expert Medical professionals will hear the complaint and express an impeccable opinion , as this step is a necessary requirement before pressing charges in the regular court.
This clarification was made by the NMA President , Dr. Faduyile in the course of a panel discussion at the break out session of the Medicine and The Law committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) National conference at Eko Hotels.
he discussants at this section of Legal Practice committee were Dr Francis Faduyile, Abiodun Olayiwole, Akinyemi Oladipupo, Dr Joel Akande, who double as a Lawyer and a Medical Doctor, and Alex Mouka Esq.
In their concensus opinion, the panelists agreed that while Medical Doctors are bound by a professional oath, the relationship between a doctor and the patient is a contract.
Abiodun Olayiwole noted that with regards to the the Doctor/Patient contract, the patient has a right with respect to the treatment he or she gets from the doctor, stressing that this right flows from the right to life among other rights.
While describing what could aptly be termed emergency care, Dr Faduyile clarified that what emergency care would imply in an accident involving just five victims would be different in an emergency situation of mass disaster. He said the essence of emergency care is to save the life of victims whose chances of survival is very strong. ” In an accident involving let’s say five victims, the victim who is barely breathing requires an emergency attention at the expense of the one who lost a limb because the effort is to ensure that the one who is barely breathing does not die. However in a mass disaster the effort of the medical professionals is to ensure those who have lost limbs are given emergency care because their chances of survival are stronger than that of those who are barely breathing.
” The patient who complains of medical negligence in the two scenarios above may not understand the discretionary instinct of the Medical professional,” Dr Faduyile said. The Doctors and the Lawyers in the Panel said Medical negligence include medical miscalculation, failure to assess the psychological make up of a patient , clear manifestation of professional incompetence, unreasonable diagnosis cum prescription, failure to properly advise patient among others.
On the issue of who foots the bill of the helpless patients in an emergency situation, Dr Akande maintained that medical practice is a business and emergency care requires the urgent attention of the medical
professionals in charge.
In his own view, Dr Faduyile noted that the only way to continue to ensure that the treatment of emergency cases do not suffer fund challenge is for Government to earmark fund to take care of emergency services .
The panelists admitted that medicolegal undertone of professional negligence is not a one way concept and it is of utmost importance to put the narrative in a clear perspective so that a complainant realises weather in a given case there was negligence or not, and if there was , what approach is required to seek redress.
Faduyile stressed that it is not in all cases that an error is deemed a negligent act of professional misconduct
as there are handfull of cases of unintended harm which could occur in the process of operating on a patient.
The NMA harrow head stated that establishing a case of negligence is hard if not impossible in the absence of autopsy as it is only an autopsy that can establish the original cause of death linking and confirming negligence or not.
Dr Faduyile also said private autopsy cannot form the basis of a medicolegal ground for establishing a prima facie case of professional negligence , noting that a coroner’s inquest is a formidable medicolegal autopsy which findings are deemed incontrovertible and are tenable both at the medical and dental council tribunal and the court of law.
