Have you ever been hurt while receiving medical treatment, after ingesting the wrong or fake drug and after undergoing a surgery? Did you just accept your fate as an act of God?
Gone are the days when doctors were regarded as ‘supermen’ and their judgment on health matters was accepted without question. Now, experts are saying that since it is difficult to prove all cases of medical malpractice, patients must begin to know their rights. In the absence of this, the doctor’s actions, or inaction, may worsen their health.
Also, they say that physicians can no longer treat their patients nor subject them to some medical procedure without their consent.
A consultant mental health physician and specialist in medical law with the Federal Neuro-psychiatric Teaching Hospital in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun State, Dr. Adegboyega Ogunwale, says more than 90 per cent of patients, especially in a developing country like Nigeria, are aware of just five per cent of their medical rights .
However, Ogunwale notes that this trend is about to change, following increasing access to medical information on the Internet.
He says that doctors must be made to realise that they cannot continue to give treatment to their clients without informing them about the dangers and risks involved.
He notes that the patient, to whom doctors scribbled prescriptions without tangible information on how the drugs work, is on the verge of becoming the ‘king’ as litigations from aggrieved clients increase with each passing day.
According to Ogunwale, it is not only negligence or malpractice, that lead to disability or death in some cases, that can be contested. He urges patients to always remember that they can seek redress from the appropriate authorities, if certain rights, as stated below, are infringed by medical personnel.
Bad attitude or rude behaviour
The medical litigation expert says patients can hold doctors liable for any treatment given in a rude or insolent manner in any hospital.
He states that doctors and other health workers should see themselves as serving humanity.
Ogunwale says many doctors often become so familiar with their patients that they forget to be courteous or seek verbal consent from them.
“A pregnant woman you have been seeing for five months comes to your office and instead of saying to her, ‘please madam, take off your skirt and climb the examination table because I am going to examine your womb to see how your baby is lying. I’m afraid, it may hurt a little, you just order her to go to the table and remove her skirt. Before she knows it, you dip your hand in her private part and it hurts her. If she feels dissatisfied with your judgment that day, you may be charged for assault,”he says.
Nurses and other health workers are not exempted. Ogunwale says the principal doctor, or a hospital, could be sued for assault as a result of the actions of their members of staff.
He says, “In litigation for assault, a doctor or the hospital cannot feign ignorance that they are not aware that their staff spoke rudely or offered poor care to a patient. The hospital will be held responsible for any deed or misdeed of intern, resident or junior colleague in its employ. This is not the time for you to tolerate a rude member of staff or to condone indiscipline.”
Non-disclosure or lack of written consent
Ogunwale notes that a doctor can be sued for not disclosing the risks and adverse effects of a treatment or surgery to a patient under many laws in the medical practice.
He says patients can sue, if they are made to observe any medical procedure without consenting to it, especially in cases that are not emergencies.
“A doctor must seek a written consent from a patient before some operations that will lead to irreversible changes, or consequences in his life, are carried out. For example, if a surgery may lead to fracture or loss of an organ, the patient must be told and they must have a written consent.
“ If it is not an emergency, the law says you must have counselled the patient, at least four times, before you seek his or her consent. The patient must have agreed without coercion.”
On non-disclosure, Ogunwale says a doctor could be sued if a patient claims not to understand clearly the risks and success of the treatment they are about to be offered.
“This is for the women and their gynaecologists. A woman once sued her doctor because her contraception failed. She claimed that her doctor did not fully disclose to her the failure rate.
“The doctor was held liable for the cost of the pregnancy, and, God help him, if the baby is not healthy, he may also have to bear the cost of the baby’s medical treatment. If a drug will lead to dementia or hypertension, let the patients know and agree to take it. The society is becoming more complicated. So patients must assume their risks clearly now,” he says.
Doctors and Patient’s confidentiality/Disclosing health information
Ogunwale says this is the aspect of patients rights that is mostly violated by doctors, nurses and other health workers.
According to him, by law, except in cases of litigation or danger, doctors may not disclose information on the health of their patients to anyone without their consent.
He says, “This is the trickiest one. You cannot disclose information about the health of a wife to the husband without her consent and vice versa. A woman or man will only tell you how many sexual partners they have because they trust you to stick to the code of ethics.They know they can hold you liable if it comes out.”
Source: Punch
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