Medical Malpractice Awards Result In Reduced Health Care
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 12, 1990
NEW YORK, Sunday: A $US1.35 million ($A1.78 million) award to a New York doctor with AIDS and legal action over a mix-up at a Manhattan sperm bank has again focused attention on the high cost in the US of medical malpractice awards.
The case involving Dr Veronica Prego, who has fought since last year in a New York court for damages, is that she became infected with the AIDS virus after she pricked herself with a syringe while working at a Brooklyn hospital and that the hospital was negligent because it failed to enforce proper procedures for the disposal of AIDS contaminated equipment.
Although Dr Prego initially said she wanted $US175 million in damages, she settled last Friday for $1.35 million in what the judge said was a fairly negotiated settlement based on the knowledge that Dr Prego was unlikely to live much more than another year.
Before the Prego case was settled out of court, the jury was about to start its consideration of the case and according to one jury member, a primary consideration for him was that a large award to the dying doctor would divert funds away from "needed health services".
In the sperm bank case, a woman claims to have been inseminated with the wrong sperm and says she will produce her 3-year-old daughter as evidence.
The child is black; the woman is white, as was her late husband.
Although the case is still in its early stages, her lawyer has already foreshadowed a substantial damages claim.
The high cost of malpractice suits and the more general problem of inadequate health resources has become a major concern.
Last week a doctors' group proposed that the Administration adopt a national medical scheme similar to Canadian and Australian schemes and have additional specific measures to reduce litigation against doctors.
Although all medical disciplines have been hit by compensation awards that reach regularly multi-million dollar levels, the group that has been overwhelmingly singled out is obstetricians.
In Washington, for example, more than 80 per cent of all obstetricians have been sued.
And according to a recent national survey of doctors, one in eight obstetricians had stopped performing deliveries because of the risk of a malpractice suit.
Virginia and Florida have adopted limited no-fault systems for birth-related injuries in an attempt to overcome the loss of doctors but attempts by other States to limit jury awards have been ruled unconstitutional by higher courts.
The cost of malpractice insurance is said by doctors to be a major burden on their practices.
It is also a reason given by some foreign-trained doctors for not working in the US despite the fact that some towns, particularly in rural areas, lack a community-based general practitioner.
The insurance and litigation dilemma with its consequences of higher costs and less services is, according to some doctors and economists, hampering the reform of the US health system.
The US remains the only industrialised country apart from South Africa that does not have universal health care for its citizens. According to official statistics, about 30 million Americans are not insured.
The cost of medical malpractice awards is a factor that has helped inflate the price of hospital and medical insurance. In New York it costs about $US370($A484) per month for family health insurance.
© 1990 Sydney Morning Herald
Share This