This blog is co-authored by Yuveshen Naidoo, a Candidate Attorney.
In July 2025 the High Court held the North West MEC for Health liable for damages arising from a brain injury sustained by a minor child during birth at Mahikeng Provincial Hospital. The plaintiff, acting in her representative capacity as the mother and natural guardian
A decision made by the High Court in Nairobi in June 2025 has set a significant precedent in medical negligence law in Kenya. The court found both a hospital and a consultant gynaecologist jointly and severally liable for severe injuries suffered by a patient following a hysterectomy and related procedures and awarded damages of R21 557 191.
This blog is co-authored by Danita Mungaroo, candidate attorney.
The High Court recently dealt with a complex medical negligence case involving allegations of substandard care at Themba Hospital. The matter concerned a child born with severe mixed-type cerebral palsy due to hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), a brain injury caused by oxygen deprivation during birth. The claimant
In this Supreme Court of Appeal judgment 21.pdf (saflii.org) in a claim for medical negligence damages, the court again cautioned against commencing with an unfavourable outcome and working backwards in search of a cause.
South African and other courts have cautioned that a doctor should not be held negligent simply because something went wrong. That
In this February 2023 judgment, the MEC for Health in the Eastern Cape successfully obtained an order by which the quantum of damages to be paid to a claimant in a medical negligence claim was reduced by the medical services and equipment which the Department of Health could provide to the claimant without charge.
The claimant, a mother of a child with haemophilia and autism, had, prior to her pregnancy, consulted with her GP to determine whether she carried the gene for haemophilia. The doctor negligently led her to believe that she did not carry this gene, and as a result, she was led to believe that she could
The Constitutional Court in Van der Walt v The State set aside a doctor’s criminal conviction for culpable homicide on the basis of irregularities committed by the regional magistrate, which infringed the doctor’s right to a fair trial.
The conviction was not set aside on the merits. Therefore, whether the doctor’s guilt was proved beyond
The Eastern Cape MEC for Health was held vicariously liable for the negligent conduct of provincial hospital nursing staff in failing to take the necessary steps to ensure that a patient’s wound was properly assessed and cleaned and that all debris, specifically a large shard of glass, had been removed. The patient’s wound became infected
A doctor is not negligent if they act in accordance with a practice accepted at the time as proper by a reasonable and respected body of medical opinion. This is so even if other doctors might have acted differently based on other acceptable medical opinions.
The case of Felicia Meyers v MEC, Department of Health, Eastern Cape deals with the evidence required to give rise to an inference of negligence on the part of an operating surgeon as to whether the injury caused in the course of the operation resulted from negligence (the failure to apply the professional skill and