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NewsDay

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Can one sue a doctor successfully?

Opinion & Analysis
I read with interest the story about a widow that is suing eye specialist, Dr Solomon Guramatunhu, over the death of her spouse who underwent a cataract removal operation about four years ago.

I read with interest the story about a widow that is suing eye specialist, Dr Solomon Guramatunhu, over the death of her spouse who underwent a cataract removal operation about four years ago.

Opinion by Ropafadzo Mapimhidze

Joan Gross, together with the executor to her late husband’s estate CAD Venturas, is suing Guramatunhu, Greenwood Park Eye Centre and the nurse anaesthetist, Stanford Phiri, at the High Court.

But Dr Guramatunhu denies ever causing Horst Gross’ death.

Venturas and Samukange law firm is acting for CAD Venturas and Joan Gross in the court case, while Gill Godlonton and Gerrans are representing Dr Guramatunhu and the clinic.

Dr Guramatunhu stated that he was only a consultant at the Greenwood Park Eye Centre and that the clinic was not his correct address of service.

He denied that Phiri was his employee and that he even thought he was a qualified nurse anaesthetist.

“While accepting that the late Horst Gross died during the course of a cataract operation, first defendant denies that he acted improperly or wrongfully in performing the cataract surgery.”

But the question is, do medical practitioners, especially anaestheticians, accept wrongdoing when a patient dies because of negligence?

Many stories have been reported about men, women and even children that have died following very minor procedures.

This has revived the debate as to whether an individual can successfully sue or prove that a medical practitioner performed surgery recklessly resulting in the death of a patient.

A toddler from Tynwald North died six years after an ENT (ears, nose and throat) specialist performed a minor operation on his throat in 2007. He was only two when the operation was conducted.

Doctors who later attended to him after the operation allegedly told the mother, Georgina Tangwena, that he would not live beyond six months, but the toddler lived for a further six years.

It was a distressful sight as Munyaradzi could neither move nor eat on his own. He was fed through a hole on his throat (known as a tracheostomy) where a pipe was inserted to feed him processed food.

Then we had the notorious Tinashe Hungwe case that dragged on for years to establish circumstances that led to his death following a minor procedure conducted by a popular ENT specialist.

These cases raise a number of questions regarding the practice of medicine and the legal system in Zimbabwe where there is very little protection for members of the public.

Another case that hit the news in the 90s was that of Richard McGown, an anaesthetist who “unlawfully and negligently” killed two children.

Their parents described Zimbabwe’s legal system as ineffective. “You respect the law according to how it works. If it doesn’t work effectively and is apparently flawed, then you, by nature, must react against it,” said Kenyan lawyer Charles Khaminwa, whose daughter Lavender (10) died at the Avenues Clinic in August 1990, a report by Inter Press Service (IPS) said.

A local judge reserved judgment for two weeks sentencing the Scottish-born doctor for culpable homicide, after he was found guilty of purposely injecting patients with “heavy” doses of morphin. McGown, on appeal, was allowed to continue practicing medicine and administer morphine.

In most Western countries, a doctor charged with medical slackness is banned from practicing until outcome of the case.

There was overwhelming evidence to prosecute McGown, but the Avenues Clinic, where these careless practices were conducted, failed to take action.

He continued striding the corridors of this clinic until he decided to go back to his country of origin Britain.

But British lawmakers claimed he carried out medical experiments on 500 patients, most of them black. The majority of these patients died.

McGown was finally blacklisted as a doctor in the United Kingdom, something the Health Professions Council (HPC) could have done in Zimbabwe. He was sentenced to six months in prison.

Some specialist doctors have admitted that in every surgical operation there are risks, which could worsen the condition of the patient and even result in death.

They say although doctors are held liable if deaths or any other complications occur after an operation, these are expected hazards of the profession and not always attributed to negligence.

“The number of people involved and the overwhelming evidence pointed towards negligence, but the HPC deliberately did not act. Their stance lay with protecting and publicly supporting McGown. At that point they abdicated their responsibility to the general public,” the then ZimRights director Ozias Tungwarara said in an interview with IPS.

Tungwarara also noted that even the judge had remarked that the State could have brought a more serious charge over the issue of “clinical trials” — McGown’s experimentation with anaesthesia without the permission of his patients.