Since no man is perfect in this world, it is evident that a person who is skilled and has knowledge over a particular subject can also commit mistakes during his practice. Too err is human but to replicate the same mistake due to one’s carelessness is negligence. The fundamental reason behind medical error or medical negligence is the carelessness of the said doctors or medical professionals it can be observed in various cases where reasonable care is not taken during the diagnosis, during operations, sometimes while injecting anaesthesia
Medical Negligence It was rightly said by Richard Seizer “If people understood that doctors weren't divine, perhaps the odor of malpractice might diminish.” For a patient, the doctor is like God. And, the almighty can never commit any mistake but that is what the patient thinks or believes. In reality, doctors are human beings. And, to err is human. Doctors may commit a mistake, but committing a mistake due to one’s own carelessness is defined as negligence.
Errors occurrence in sharing patient’s information varied with team leadership style. Failure in planning and lack of collaboration varied with medical unit and team leadership. Failure in decision-making varied with medical units. Delegation of authority varied with positions. However specialist doctors witnessed errors due to the delegation of authority more than other.
Negligence can be said as failure to take due care, as a result of which injury arises. Negligence ignores wrongful intention. Carelessness is not a ground for legal liability except in those cases in which the law has imposed the duty of carefulness. The medical profession is one such field of the society in which duty has been imposed in the strict manner A medical professional is expected to have the requisite degree of skill and knowledge. .
Doctors may commit a mistake. Doctors may be negligent .The support staff may be careless. Two acts of negligence may give rise to much bigger problem. It may be due to gross negligence .Anything is possible. In such a scenario, it is critical to determine who was negligent, and under what circumstances.
YES! People make mistakes,its called being human.Men are given the nature of human,because there is a reason god is called the almighty.Since no man is perfect in this world ,it is evident that a person who is skilled and has knowledge over a particular subject can also commit mistakes during his practice. It is very difficult to define negligence;however,the concept has been accepted in jurisprudence . Negligence by doctors has to be determined by the judges who are not trained in medical science.They rely on experts’ opinion and decide on the basis of basic principles of reasonableness and prudence.This brings into a lot of subjectivity into the decision and the effort is to reduce it and have certain objective criteria .This may sound simple
But one cannot always escape from the unknown, i.e., what he cannot manage: "Modern western medicine is ‘scientific’, in the sense that it presumes to control and dominate things. But death is unavoidable. "27 Thus withholding or withdrawing life supportive care on the basis of fear of a future handicap is also ominous for caregivers. It is a negation of the desire and wonder of existence, however imperfect; it means negation of the wonder and desire of our own existence, however flawed: "The caregiver’s dialectic is identical to the patient’s dialectic. To what extent is the caregiver able to accept a person who is suffering, especially where he is suffering?
As is known to all, spinocerebellar ataxia is hard to cure and patients who suffer from this kind of disease will go through enormous pressure. In other words, this disease will affect the patients’ mental and physical health deadly. However the existing medical technology does not work on it well. Therefore, in other words, if nobody really cares about them, this disease will make patients suffer forever, which does not only result in a heavy burden of family but also a burden of society and medical organization. Is it really able to be cured completely?
Even small errors can lead to bigger problems for the patients. Sometimes healthcare workers can operate an equipment wrongly or make careless mistakes during surgeries. This can cause injuries or even death to the patients. For example, after a surgery the hole in the patient chest was not sealed airtight after removing the chest tube. This mistake causes air bubbles to get sucked into the wound and cut off blood supply to the patient's lungs, heart, kidneys and brain and it was left uncorrected.
Burchell is of the belief that where there is negligent medical treatment, there is novus actus interveniens. Snyman has an opposing view on medical negligence. He believes that negligent medical treatment should not break the chain of causation and only if it is gross negligent medical treatment can it act as a novus actus