South Africa´s recent spate of hospital horror stories and the sharp rise in cases of medical negligence are disturbing with medical negligence claims against provincial the country´s Health Departments increasing by around 25 per cent per year between 2011 and 2016.
This is according to Kirstie Haslam, partner at DSC Attorneys who says that the Gauteng Department of Health, (South Africa´s wealthiest province) receives a particularly staggering number of negligence claims each year. Since January 2015, it has been forced to pay out more than R1.017 billion ($US74 million) to settle 185 medical negligence claims.
“Deteriorating conditions in state hospitals, as well as incompetence and gross negligence on the part of staff members, are at the root of these claims – the vast majority of which were ruled in favour of the plaintiffs,” Haslam explains.
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