Medical Negligence Law; for a Better Approach in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Doctors are expected to use their special expertise knowledge and skills to save patient's lives without being negligent and if a patient suffers an injury due to the negligence of doctor, there's a remedy available under civil law. In a medical negligence law suit, the plaintiff has to prove four elements, and whether the defendant doctor has attained the required standard of care is a complex factor which is difficult to determine in a lawsuit. In English law several tests have been developed to measure this requirement in a medical negligent lawsuit. In today's society the patients want best of care and the doctors wanted to treat their errors as human errors. While granting a satisfactory solution to the victimized patient, the courts also have a duty to allow doctors to behave without fear of litigation. So with the emerging concepts of patient autonomy and the patient safety, medical negligence has become a debatable issue today. This paper analyzes some case studies, articles and books of medical negligence law with the main objective of examining the required standard of care by doctor. Medical malpractice lawsuits have continued to rise in western countries over the past years. It directly affects clinical freedom and therefore doctors tend to take defensive actions when treating patients. In countries like Sri Lanka on the other hand, people are not much aware about medical negligence even terrible incidents take place, causing injustice to patients. Based on the analyzed issues and identified best practices (such as no fault compensation schemes, Alternative dispute resolution), this paper discusses about how Sri Lanka can best respond to the patient safety approaches by law reforms with the aim of reducing medical negligence to ensure patient safety and also to reduce risk of litigation.