Written by Nater Akpen

Willie King was an American blue-collar worker who had lived with diabetes for 20 years; his age was 51 at the time. Owing to a diabetes-ridden foot, he was scheduled to have an amputation at a reputable medical facility. The amputation was as uneventful as amputations can best go: he had his foot uncoupled from the rest of his body. His left foot. 

But it was his right foot, not his left foot, that took him to the surgery. His left foot was very normal. In response, the hospital management tried to argue why it is a necessity to amputate the left foot when you present with a diabetic right foot. 

At a routine medical check-up, a paediatrician had seen a two-month-old baby. A week later, the baby died of a condition called SIDS. The mother of the baby instituted a lawsuit in which she alleged that the doctor should have prevented the death. Never mind that SIDS means sudden infant death syndrome which is characterised by occurrence without warning and diagnosis only after death. 

Both stories emphasize two dialectics of the state of medical negligence. The first is the denial of its existence, mainly by proposing the infallibility of the doctor. The second is the insistence on its existence when there is none. The motivations here may be as biased as receiving a profitable compensation or as real a grief response to a tragedy. 

The first, which is patient-centric, accentuates the direct consequences of medical negligence; the second, which is doctor-centric, emphasizes the consequence that arises from the culture of overzealous combat against medical negligence. The consequences of medical negligence are pervasive to varying degrees in different societies. In Nigeria, for example, the patient is more likely to suffer from medical negligence than the doctor.

The first consequence of medical negligence is a loss of trust in the healthcare system. This loss of trust is a primary human reaction to a product that has failed to provide the promised satisfaction. For example, consumers of an electronic refrigerator would cease to patronise a company whose refrigerators have stopped cooling. 

But what makes the loss of trust, and eventual loss of patronage, of the healthcare system a problem of a larger degree is this: by not approaching healthcare facilities, the patients are the poorer for it. Knowledge of Mr King's misfortune would cause another person to hold back visiting a hospital for case management; this hesitating would lead to a persistence of a sickly constitution which may even lead to death.

More directly, there have been instances where people have died instantly because of medical negligence either due to drug overdoses, wrong drug prescriptions, lackadaisical surgical practices, and wholesale inadequate or delayed care. This will further reinforce the notion of the hospital as being a place not to visit if one wants to live.

Glucophage 500mg X30

Glucophage (metformin) Is An Oral Diabetes Medicin...

Buy Now

₦7200

Buy Now

Medical negligence could also lead to a loss of productivity. This may occur in the form of more extended hospital stays because of medical errors. It may even occur where the hospitals inadvertently cause disability to patients. Mr King, for example, was productive at a certain level when he had two legs. With one leg, that productivity should have dropped by half. Now with two legs amputated (as the right leg too must now be amputated as it was it that was diseased in the first place), his contribution to his family and the national economy would drop almost to zero level. The impacts of this productivity loss would be staggering on a population-wide scale. Doctors would also lose their productivity due to dampened morale. Such a dampened morale would arise from unreasonable and unfair accusations laid against them. Litigation would also eat up their productive hours.

    In Nigerian society, patients suffer medical negligence much more than doctors. One could argue that if the consequences of medical negligence were increased for doctors, those on patients would reduce. But, in the end, seeking to understand medical negligence is to seek to improve the healthcare system because definitions of doctor or patient are arbitrary and fluid at best. 

Powered by Froala Editor