What is a medical error? This question is mainly of interest to those citizens who, by the will of fate, faced with the fact that the medical worker did not show due respect for the patient during the diagnosis, which during the treatment led to serious damage to the patient’s health or death of the patient .
So, a medical error is an unintentional act. Consequently, it is subject to punishment, but not as severe as we would like the relatives and relatives of the injured citizen. You will learn about the sanctions awaiting the doctor in that situation if the patient died through his fault or was seriously injured during the reading of this article.
A little about the main thing
Currently, in criminal law there is no such term as a medical error. Therefore, it is not always possible to punish a medical worker for what was done. In addition, many people have heard that patients die in a hospital hospital or in the operating room, but the doctors themselves go unpunished. But why is this happening? Is a person in a white coat to be held accountable if the wrong diagnosis was made due to his fault and the wrong treatment was started, which subsequently led to the death of a person?
Of course, a doctor who made an unforgivable mistake should be held accountable for his actions under the law. But to do this is not always possible. After all, the fault of a medical practitioner will still have to be proved. Until this moment, the latter will not be considered guilty of his deed.
What is
The interpretation of the concept of medical error is absent in Russian law. Nevertheless, this term can be described as improperly performed professional duties of a medical worker, which led to serious consequences, such as causing irreparable harm to the patient’s health or death of the patient. Based on this, it can be understood that a medical error is understood not only as an incorrect diagnosis, but also as a result of timely medical assistance to a patient or infection of a person with some dangerous virus (infection through the blood when working with dirty tools).
In addition, many patients whose health conditions have deteriorated significantly after visiting a medical facility are convinced that they did not receive treatment for the disease that they have. In practice, this is quite common.
At the legislative level
In the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, medical error as a separate criminal act is not fixed. Consequently, it is possible to attract a medical worker for the implementation of certain actions that significantly worsened the patient’s condition or led to the death of the patient only with the proven guilt of a hospital specialist under other articles of the criminal law. For example, if, due to the negligence of a medic, the patient died or the woman had an abortion illegally.
Nevertheless, the current legislation does not give an unambiguous answer to the question of what is a medical, medical error. This term is found only in the draft Federal Law "On compulsory insurance of citizens in the provision of medical assistance." In this regulatory document, this concept is characterized as the action or inaction of a medical worker or the entire medical organization that entailed consequences such as causing serious harm to the health of a citizen (patient) or the life of the latter.
Addition
Thus, it becomes clear that a medical error can be committed only at the time when the medical officer performs the duties assigned to him. In addition, the specialists working in the health care system themselves cannot give an exact definition of this concept. Nevertheless, all medical workers are confident that the doctor should not make mistakes when diagnosing a patient or during an operation.
Possible sanctions
Despite the contradictions in the law, the punishment still exists. As already stated above, the actions or omissions of the physician, which entailed such negative consequences as causing serious harm to the patient’s health or taking his life, are considered a medical error. Article 109 of the Criminal Code contains sanctions for specialists whose negligence cut short human life. Of course, this is an unintentional act, and the maximum punishment a doctor can receive in such a situation is imprisonment of up to three years. Moreover, he will not be able to practice medicine for the same period of time.
Interesting
But why does it happen that the patient dies due to the fact that the doctor improperly performed his professional duties? After all, the physician did not want the onset of such consequences and, moreover, did not want the patient to die, but for some reason, by his carelessness, did not take the necessary measures to ensure that the person remained alive. Nonetheless, only a court can pass a fair sentence for the commission of such an unintentional act.
Responsibility for medical error
It can be of two types:
- criminal, when a physician receives a sentence and is serving it, and also loses the right to practice medicine;
- civil, when the victim presents a claim for damages to the judicial authority.
All people who have faced similar cases of rendering poor-quality and unprofessional medical care should be aware of this.
In the event that the doctor’s guilt of committing a criminal act is proved in court, he will be punished for this. In addition, he will have to compensate the victim for the harm caused. Nevertheless, civil cases are often instituted in which the defendant is not the doctor himself, but the medical institution in which he works.
It should also be noted that if the fault of the specialist in the deed does not find its confirmation at the hearing, then the damage is not subject to compensation. In most cases, this is what happens. After all, not all citizens are able to defend their innocence in court.
I would also like to say that, under criminal law, a doctor is called to account in exceptional cases. Moreover, in practice such cases are very rarely brought by law enforcement officers.
In addition to the foregoing
If a physician has committed actions that led to irreparable consequences, such as causing serious harm to human health or the death of a patient, this means that the specialist made a medical mistake. Article 122 of the Criminal Code contains sanctions for those persons who, due to dishonest performance of their professional duties, have allowed HIV infection to a healthy person. For the deed, the doctor may be imprisoned for a period of up to 5 years. In the form of additional sanctions, a ban on medical activities is applied.
But how can this happen if all over the country, especially in clinics and hospitals, such serious work is being done to combat HIV infection? So, this can happen even in that situation if the doctor or nurse didn’t handle the instruments well or did not sterilize them after another patient with a positive status (for example, at a dentist appointment, in the treatment room, where everything should be disposable).
There were also situations when, during a complex operation, a healthy person was given an emergency blood transfusion (which was taken from an HIV-positive person), but the doctors did not have time to find out such details, because they saved the patient's life. Of course, this is very rare in life, but nevertheless it happens.
Causes of medical errors
Why, then, does it happen that a qualified medical specialist commits irreparable and even criminal acts in assisting a patient? This question is of interest to many people who have encountered similar problems and have suffered greatly due to the negligence of doctors.
Firstly, a physician may initially make the patient the wrong diagnosis. For example, instead of a perforated gastric ulcer, a person began to be treated with a liver while the patient needed urgent hospitalization and an emergency operation. As a result, a person almost lost his life.
Secondly, because of their workload, doctors often make mistakes when filling out outpatient records of patients. Thus, by pure chance, the physician could paste the tests of one patient into the card of another. As a result, the disease was not cured, and the condition remained serious.
How does this happen
It should also be noted that the greatest number of medical errors occurs due to the irresponsible and even negligent attitude of the doctor to his official duties. For example, an ambulance brought a patient with pains in the lower abdomen, and the doctor on duty did not even examine her, thinking that this could wait. As a result, the woman began to bleed, and she almost died.
In addition, many doctors want to earn extra money and sometimes carry out medical activities after hours, sometimes beyond their competence. For example, a general practitioner cannot competently have an abortion for a woman if he has never done it. As a result of such rash actions of the physician, the girl will simply die.
There are a lot of such examples of medical errors. Moreover, there are also known cases when, due to the wrong dose of the administered drug for general anesthesia, patients died right on the operating table. Who is to blame? Of course, doctors who made an unforgivable mistake during the performance of their duties.
From practical activities
Currently, many citizens of our country are going to court with lawsuits against medical organizations, dentists who incorrectly diagnosed and removed healthy teeth, chose the wrong remedy for anesthesia, as a result of which the person experienced severe swelling of the face and required an urgent operation.
Basically, all these people want to defend their rights. Nevertheless, there are also those citizens who want to attract a doctor for an allegedly perfect mistake, but without any special reason. For example, before surgery, the patient was given the consent to surgery. As a result, the person could not be saved. Who is to blame in this case? Only expertise can confirm. Nevertheless, many believe that if a patient dies during surgery, then this is always the fault of the medical professional.
The practice of medical errors shows that in the event of such situations a specialist is held accountable in extremely rare cases. Because the patient gives his consent to the operation and is warned in advance about what the consequences may be. Does the court recognize a medical error in such a situation? More often than not. After all, the doctor tried to save the life of the patient. Therefore, it is unlikely that the medic is to blame for what happened.
Total
Currently, medical error has not yet been clearly defined in existing legislation. In addition, medical professionals themselves rarely consider illegal actions of their colleagues a criminal act. Therefore, if people want to ensure that the doctor, through whose fault the patient died or was seriously injured, suffers at least some punishment, then they just need to seek the help of an experienced and qualified lawyer. Because acting independently and without any documents in hand, it is unlikely to succeed even in winning a civil case and getting at least a small monetary compensation from a medical institution.