Medical malpractice. The worst medical errors that can happen to us

Medical errors are the category of mistakes, the results of which people perceive most painfully. How can the loss of a human life be justified as a mistake? But precisely because we are all living people, sometimes such cases happen.

Medical errors in America alone lead to more than 250 thousand deaths annually, which is about 9.5% of total mortality.

1. You can’t forget everything to remember - put a comma

The most common medical error is surgical supplies forgotten and sewn inside the patient. Such an error, innocent at first glance, can lead to an absolutely disastrous outcome. Therefore, the operating room always maintains total control over all equipment, including every thread or napkin. But even with such control, there are cases of oversight and negligence of health workers. Thus, in Dopropolye, a twenty-centimeter clamp was forgotten inside a patient during an operation to remove the appendix. Before this thing was discovered and removed, the man lived with it for 5 years.

2. Sew it and forget it

Doctors from Moscow had a much worse result. A rather large napkin was accidentally sewn to the small intestine, which led to death immediately after the operation.

3. The doctor overdid it

Many mistakes happen due to inexperience. But how can you call the head of the surgical department from the Novosibirsk region inexperienced? While performing a simple operation to remove the appendix, he managed to cut the iliac artery, which immediately led to the death of the man from heavy bleeding.

4. Caught, but not a thief

A violent patient escaped from an Australian psychiatric hospital. The police immediately rushed to search. The caught patient was immediately taken back to the clinic in handcuffs. There, having dressed him in a straitjacket, which was more familiar to such places, the doctors heartily treated the fugitive with psychotropic drugs. And only after some time the poor fellow managed to emerge from his drugged state and explain to his tormentors that they had caught the wrong one. The victim was an absolutely healthy and completely stranger man. Everything ended well, if you don’t take into account the fact that the “psycho” spent some time under cleansing drips.

5. Dad can do anything

Dad may even, due to someone's mistake, not become a dad. This is exactly what happened in a New York artificial insemination clinic. Parents suspected something was wrong immediately after the birth of the child. The baby was absolutely different from her father, namely, unlike her parents, she was dark-skinned. As it turned out, as a result of an investigation and DNA test carried out at the clinic, the test tubes were simply mixed up with biomaterial. As a result, the father of the long-awaited daughter became a complete stranger. If we do not take into account the moral and social aspect of the problem, we can say that everything also turned out more or less well.

6. The Toothpick Doctor

An incredible story happened to a British army soldier, 25-year-old Alison Diver. While their unit was in Germany, Alison broke her two front teeth. For unknown reasons, she turned not to a military dentist, but to an unfamiliar civilian doctor. Since local anesthesia did not work on her, she agreed to general anesthesia. Imagine Alison’s surprise when, after waking up, she did not find a doctor, but found a bag with all her teeth near her. The reasons that prompted the careless dentist to do such an act remained unknown. The young girl had to spend a lot of time and effort on complete oral prosthetics.

7. To the left is hay, to the right is straw

It would probably be a good idea for a surgeon in Tampa, Florida to use this simple rule. Having forgotten his basic knowledge, he managed to confuse and amputate 52-year-old patient Willie King's left leg instead of his right leg. The scandal could not be hushed up, and the clinic and the surgeon lost more than a million dollars, giving the money as compensation to the patient.

8. The doctor or the doctor needed an eye and an eye

As in the previous case, we will talk about elementary inattention. In 1892, a ten-year-old boy, Thomas Stewart, injured one of his eyes while playing with a knife, causing him to lose part of his vision. The doctor helped him become completely blind. Considering that the damaged eye needed to be removed, he mistakenly removed the boy’s absolutely healthy organ. We can only guess what kind of punishment doctors suffered for their mistakes more than a hundred years ago.

9. Radiation and treatment

A patient suffering from tongue cancer suffered even greater misfortune. Jerome Parks - that was the patient's name - for several days mistakenly received radiation aimed at other healthy organs, in particular the brain. The consequence of this was the complete loss of hearing and vision of the patient. The unbearable torment of the unfortunate man was alleviated only by death.

10. Disinfected patient

Also fatal was the mistake of nurse Virginia Mason. She, having inattentively read the inscription on the package, gave the patient an injection of a disinfectant solution. Mary McClinton, 69, did not survive such negligence.

11. Lungs instead of a stomach

As sad as it is, this case is also fatal. 79-year-old patient from San Francisco Eugene Rigs suffered from a disease that did not allow him to eat properly through the esophagus. They planned to administer food to him through a special probe, which was supposed to pass through the esophagus. But the probe was mistakenly inserted not into the esophagus, but into the trachea, that is, into the lungs. Not only was the probe already interfering with normal breathing, but food also began to flow into the lungs. The error was discovered fairly quickly. Eugene and the doctors tried to cope with removing the remaining foreign mass from the lungs for several more months. But he still lost this fight for life.

12. A nervous doctor is worse than a medical error.

36-year-old Nel Radonescu from Romania had to undergo a planned operation to correct testicular pathology. But Dr. Naum Chomu made his own adjustments to the operation. The doctor's hot temper played a cruel joke on him. Having accidentally touched the urethra during an operation, the doctor became so angry that he cut off the patient’s genital organ. The doctor was able to calm down only by cutting the organ into pieces. It is predictable that this surgeon was forever deprived of his medical license through the court and was obliged to pay for the operation to restore the mutilated organ. In this case, part of the skin for the operation was taken from the hand of an unbalanced doctor.

13. Boy or girl – it doesn’t matter, the main thing is that the person is good

And finally, here are the most harmless medical errors. Each mother can probably tell several of them. These are classic mistakes when determining the sex of an unborn child using an ultrasound. Thus, one doctor promised a boy by showing a large “genital tubercle” on the screen (a definition probably understandable only to this doctor). Another, at 22 weeks of pregnancy, again on a computer monitor, clearly saw the scrotum and proudly showed it to his parents. As you can guess, in both cases girls were born. It would seem that the mistake was harmless, but it was precisely this kind of medical negligence that almost cost the lives of two Chinese citizens. Xianliang Shen, having just become the father of an unwanted daughter, beat his poor wife half to death and carried out an armed attack on the doctor who promised a son.

You can accept such excuses for medical errors as fatigue, inexperience, accidental circumstances, inattention and many other traits inherent in a living person. But no excuse will be so significant as to make up for the loss of health or relieve the pain of losing a loved one.

Victims of medical errors, of which there are more in the world than it seems, most often do not know how to defend their innocence and achieve an adequate punishment for the person in the gown, who not only failed expectations, but also demonstrated dishonesty, self-confidence or ignorance.

The punishment for “medical error” as such is not defined by law; there are several articles of the criminal code on this subject. But it’s not so easy to bring to justice a doctor who ruined someone’s life. At a minimum, independent expertise and persistent patience are required.

Fear of visiting a doctor's office is a completely healthy phenomenon. It is worse if this fear is well-founded, when patients know from the media about the terrible mistakes that occur in hospitals around the world - even in developed countries with the best equipment and high incomes for doctors. Many people have heard stories about medical instruments forgotten by specialists in the bodies of patients. Every year, similar embarrassments, and even misfortunes, happen to tens of thousands of inhabitants of the Earth who have had the misfortune of ending up in a hospital, at any level. There are other medical errors in surgery and beyond, leading to disability or death of a patient who falls into the hands of an errant specialist.

Approximately every third medical error causes complications for the patient’s health and well-being. In addition, in Russia at least two patients die every day due to such errors, and some social activists claim that up to 50 thousand a year (in America - up to 250 thousand, if that).

Such cases could be described as comical if they were fixable. Not a single decent hospital wants to spoil its reputation with operations performed at the wrong address. However, even with strict control and protocols here and there, surgeons make mistakes that should never happen. For example, in one of the US clinics, a prostate biopsy sample was once mixed up in the laboratory, and, therefore, a sick client was mixed up with a healthy one. As a result, the patient, who lived without any hint of cancer, had his entire healthy prostate removed by surgeons. This is a complex and responsible procedure. Meanwhile, the real cancer patient was sent home, unaware of his true diagnosis.

In another overseas case, a patient died from a pathological process in the lung after an intern inserted a breathing tube into the wrong place in a seriously ill patient.

Errors in patient selection make up, according to a number of studies, up to 0.5% of all medical errors in question.

Among the most nightmarish examples of patient “switching” is the story of 41-year-old Colleen Burns, who received a head injury in a fall and woke up on the operating table a minute before... the removal of internal organs by surgeons. The fanatics inevitably not only confused the patients, but also confused a living person under sedatives with a lifeless body. Fortunately, the operation was stopped in time, and the doctors remembered the curious incident for the rest of their lives. It happened in 2009 in New York state. The doctors were fined $22,000 for dangerous negligence, but could not explain why this happened. Well, after 11 months, Mrs. Burns still committed suicide by swallowing pills, despite her three daughters.

Errors during blood transfusion

It is believed that every tenth surgical operation in a hospital setting is accompanied by a blood transfusion, of which millions are performed annually. The procedure seems to be routine, but there is also room for medical mistakes, and very dangerous ones at that.

According to statistics, out of 10 thousand packages of donated blood, at least one will contain the wrong blood that is indicated on the label. Many tens of thousands of transfusion errors occur every year, with every 500th patient dying. Blood may be incorrectly signed during collection, samples may be mixed up in the laboratory, data may be entered incorrectly into the computer, etc. It also happens that the patient’s immune system refuses to accept foreign blood components or.

In 2013, in St. Petersburg, Russia, a one-year-old girl, trying to taste everything, swallowed 6 magnets from an “educational” toy, so the baby needed emergency surgery, during which the patient’s condition became very serious. Due to anemia, the girl was urgently transfused with red blood cells from... an HIV-positive donor, dooming the child to long and expensive treatment. It turned out that the head of the department received a message that the blood was contagious, but he initially ignored it. By the time the error was discovered, the child had been given 50 ml of dangerous liquid. A similar high-profile case with viruses in donor blood occurred in 2006 in Kostroma. The reason is carelessness.

Air embolism

Atmospheric air, without which a person cannot live, becomes a cause of death in a hospital environment if it enters the bloodstream. In this case, a venous air embolism develops - a special case of gas embolism. Emboli are defined as gas bubbles that can block the functioning of the circulatory system. In modern surgery, air embolism is a rare phenomenon, but it is observed more often than we would like. Gas embolism of the blood causes pulmonary embolism, when the vessels of the lungs suffer from air “plugs”. Death from pulmonary embolism is one of the leading preventable hospital deaths.

The mortality rate from air bubbles entering a patient's vein through a catheter reaches 30 percent. Even those who survive often remain disabled for life. Consequences include permanent brain damage. What is especially frightening is that air embolism can occur during routine surgical procedures, making them deadly. For example, during dental prosthetics. In 1987, a certain dentist, while “doing teeth” on clients, managed to let air into the blood of five of them. Three victims, turning blue, died right in the office from a heart attack. The problem turned out to be the hollow drill of the drill, which supplied the patients’ bloodstream with a mixture of water and air. The clients had little time to feel anything, because they were under anesthesia - general or local.

Incorrect surgical operations

It happens that victims of medical errors go to court, bringing would-be doctors to justice. In 25%, it concerns cases where patients undergo operations that are not indicated for them. Even in America, the number of such claims exceeds a hundred per year, and if the problem is successfully resolved, the compensation received by the plaintiff averages 232 thousand dollars (reaching 7 million).

Despite all the procedures designed to eliminate gross mistakes by surgeons, incorrect operations happen more often than one might think. For example, one woman had her fallopian tube removed instead of her appendix, and another patient had heart surgery that he did not need at all. One of the most terrible cases occurred in 2011, when a 32-year-old resident of England, who was carrying her fourth child and suffered from appendicitis, had her right ovary removed instead of her appendix. The operation was performed by a young surgeon of Pakistani origin, and his senior colleague and mentor chose to go home (early). The inflamed appendix did not go away; after 3 weeks the woman was again admitted to the hospital with abdominal pain. It was then that doctors from Romford learned about the mistake of the inexperienced doctor. Four days later, the patient gave birth to a still premature baby; her appendix was removed, but then she died on the operating table from multiple organ failure, which was caused by blood poisoning.

Wrong medications or incorrect dosage

People tend to believe that the medicine the doctor prescribes is the medicine they need in the right dosage. Yet millions of people are given incorrect prescriptions every day. Let's say that Americans annually purchase more than three billion recipes, of which 51.5 million contain errors. That is, if a pharmacy processes 250 medical orders per day, then four of them will be incorrect. This phenomenon is doubly dangerous. Firstly, the patient may receive a harmful drug that he does not need; secondly, he will not get what he really needs.

Mistakes with prescription drugs occur in both pharmacies and clinics. One day, a nurse accidentally poisoned a pair of twins who were born prematurely - at 27 weeks of pregnancy - with morphine. The boys were injected with lethal doses of the drug - 650-800 micrograms, when only 50-100 micrograms were supposed to be injected. The disaster happened in 2010.

In another case, a 79-year-old pensioner on dialysis was given pancuronium bromide instead of an antacid. Pancuronium is a paralyzing substance used for complex operations or lethal injections, but my grandfather needed an antacid for heartburn. The nurse mixed up the packaging. After 30 minutes, the patient became unresponsive and died from cardiac arrest.

In 2009, in Kazakhstan, an 85-year-old patient who had suffered a myocardial infarction was administered a cardiac drug, corglycone, by a nurse at a dose ten times higher than that prescribed by the doctor. She allegedly imagined that the ampoules indicated a lower dosage. The old woman began to suffer and by the time the ambulance arrived she was already dead. The health worker, who made a fatal mistake, resigned from the clinic of her own free will - with a diploma and a “clean” work record.

Hospital infections and dirty medical equipment

Usually people go to the hospital to get rid of illnesses, not suspecting that hospitals themselves are a source of illnesses and infections. They are hidden in unsterile instruments and devices, on the unwashed hands of staff. Thus, the rare Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, fraught with brain destruction (“mad cow disease”) was transmitted to dozens of patients by American neurosurgeons in 2012-2014. The reason is insufficient sterilization of surgical instruments used in the treatment of carriers of a dangerous disease.

Statistics say that every 25th hospital patient becomes a victim of a hospital infection. Hundreds of thousands of people die from such diseases every year. Having been in a hospital bed, they risk first of all acquiring pneumonia, followed in the list by inflammation of the urethra, infectious diseases of the digestive system, and primary infections of the circulatory system (from dirty catheters).

Last year, about 200 forensic medical examinations were carried out in medical cases in Belarus. Most often, they were based on claims and accusations against doctors.

Statistics, albeit partial, confirm that harm to life and health as a result of a medical error is a fairly common phenomenon. But neither in Belarus nor among our neighbors will anyone tell you exactly how many people became disabled or died as a result of the wrong actions of doctors. But, for example, the United States is aware of its medical tragedies: in the hospitals of this country, from 44 thousand to 98 thousand people die every year due to medical errors, writes the newspaper Respublika.
But is everything as simple as it seems from the outside?

Plugs, plugs and life

Patient L. underwent a planned endoscopy in one of the clinics in Bobruisk. The endoscope tube did not pass beyond the middle third of the esophagus due to some obstruction that the doctor could not see. He tried to overcome it blindly, by force, but he failed. The doctor interrupted the study and sent the patient on his own to the oncology clinic.

The woman came there five hours after the endoscopy. The dispensary specialists diagnosed damage to the inflammatory esophagus, trachea and inflammation of the mediastinal organs. Despite urgent treatment and hospitalization, the patient died.

Later, the forensic medical report will indicate a gross medical error by the endoscopist: he did not examine the patient before the examination, during endoscopy he did not empty the esophagus carefully enough, and so on.

Patient L. approached an ENT doctor at one of the clinics in Minsk with complaints of a sore throat when swallowing, saying that “a fish bone got into his throat while eating the day before.” The doctor examined the patient, but did not find a foreign body and sent the patient home.

After that, the man went to different hospitals, he was given different diagnoses, and his death on the 20th day after the first treatment was provoked by that same undetected fish bone. The forensic medical examination noted that at all stages, in violation of protocols, the patient’s esophagus was not examined and a foreign body was not diagnosed there, which ultimately led to the tragedy.

The details of these and many other stories became known thanks to the work of forensic expert commissions. These examples are gross defects in the quality of medical care. Perhaps I would like to console and say that such cases are quite rare, but this would not be true. Because from 2002 to 2010, 996 such gross defects were recorded during 822 forensic medical examinations.

The sad arithmetic is this: over eight years, doctors made an incorrect or inaccurate diagnosis 353 times, grossly violated clinical diagnostic and treatment protocols 247 times, and performed complex examinations and surgical interventions tactically and technically incorrectly 59 times. Violations during obstetrics were identified in 31 cases and 7 times surgeons left foreign bodies in the cavities of the patients’ bodies.

Over the years, our service employees have completed 1,298 forensic medical examinations,” says Yuri Gusakov, chief state forensic expert of the Republic of Belarus. “And each time they were based on claims and accusations against doctors. Based on materials from criminal cases, examinations were carried out 174 times. In general, over the past decade, from year to year there has been a steady increase in the number of examinations in so-called medical cases: from 68 in 2000 to 199 in the past.

Employees of the State Medical Forensic Examination Service of the Republic of Belarus can come to check a medical institution where something strange is happening on their own, having previously notified the Ministry of Health. And every time there are quite good reasons for this. Sometimes surprising facts come to light.

The cardiology department of one of the hospitals in the Minsk region, by the way, is well equipped,” recalls Yuri Gusakov. “There, one after another, people who were urgently delivered with heart fibrillation began to die. A well-known device called a defibrillator successfully removes a person from this state. One person died, the other... "Is there a defibrillator?" - we ask. “Yes,” they say. And there are some great new defibrillators that are really worth it. "When were they purchased?" - "Two years ago". - “Why don’t you use it?” - “Their plug doesn’t fit our sockets.” A fork costs three rubles, and millions have been invested in the hospital.

Guilty. In frivolity

The fate of doctors and heads of medical institutions whose work is defective can turn out differently. And they may be subject to different responsibilities: from disciplinary measures to administrative sanctions and criminal penalties. Although, as Alexey Kralko, a specialist in the field of medicine and law, a teacher at the Belarusian Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, notes, there are much fewer criminal cases of medical errors than civil ones.

If we analyze the review of judicial practice, there are enough claims from patients, but in most cases they end in favor of the defendant. Why? Imperfection of mechanisms of work in the medical legal field. After all, even the term “medical error” itself is quite controversial.

At one time, Academician Davydovsky called this the conscientious delusion of a doctor, which is based on the imperfection of medical science itself and its methods, the non-standard course of the disease or the lack of preparedness of the doctor. But under one condition: if no elements of dishonesty, negligence, or frivolity are detected. That is, a medical error is, by and large, the innocent actions of a doctor. But intentionally causing harm is not a mistake, it becomes a crime. That is why jurisprudence does not use the term “medical error” in practice - it is not even defined by regulatory documents. This concept is more appropriate among doctors themselves to reflect the objective incorrectness of the actions of colleagues.

From a legal point of view, the so-called medical error has all the signs of an offense and it can always be seen as careless guilt in the form of frivolity or negligence. In this case, an unfavorable treatment outcome occurs for subjective reasons. And the same result, but due to objective reasons, is classified by lawyers as accidents that do not depend in any way on the will of the doctor.

For example, a person was hospitalized too late in a serious condition, or he has a rare disease, or a disease with unexpressed symptoms, or the hospital does not have the opportunity to conduct special studies, or, in general, there is little information in medical science about the essence and mechanism of the pathological process. But to be honest, most offenses in medicine are committed due to negligence.

The concept of medical error in Russian legislation still does not have a precise definition. The same situation is observed in many other countries. At the legislative level, such an act can be proven, and the punishment depends on the specific situation.

Definition of medical error

Medical error is a situation where a doctor makes a mistake in the course of his work. The misconception is not malicious, but it leads to a deterioration in the patient’s health or death.

A medical error does not necessarily occur because of a medical professional. The reason may be a lack of quality equipment for diagnosis or treatment.

Often the root cause of medical error is a lack of knowledge, experience and qualifications, as well as outdated techniques (possibly personal rejection of innovations).

Types of medical errors

Since medical error is not defined with a precise definition, the classification should be considered conditional:

Diagnostic error. This option appears more often than others and means an incorrect diagnosis - this applies not only to the disease, but also to its complications.
Treatment and tactical error. As a rule, it is allowed due to a diagnostic error. This group includes several options: incorrect prescription or provision of medication, incorrectly selected therapy, incorrect prescription or implementation of preventive measures.
A technical error. Usually it consists of an incorrectly completed medical document. This could be: an incorrectly recorded measurement, an incomplete record, an inaccurate statement.
Organizational error. Indicates errors in medical care in terms of organization. Often this concerns problems with recording, paperwork, and the lack of conditions for the functioning of a service.
Deontological error. This issue is about ethics. The problem lies in the specialist’s behavior towards the patient, his relative, and lower-ranking personnel.
Pharmaceutical error. Indicates an error by the pharmaceutical company, resulting in incorrect indications, contraindications, or interactions with other drugs.
Errors caused by non-functioning medical equipment, technology or disruptions in the care delivery system.

Responsibility and punishment

Legal liability for medical malpractice can be civil or criminal.

Civil liability

This option means that the patient can receive reimbursement for several items:

service costs;
the amount spent on care required due to medical error;
purchase of special transport;
amount spent on medicines;
costs for sanitary-resort therapy;
compensation for lost income;
costs of forced preparation for another profession.

Institutions are usually brought to civil liability, and employees face disciplinary and financial punishment. At the civil legal level, liability is reflected in the following sources:

Civil Code;
Law “On Protection of Consumer Rights” (Articles 14-17);
Federal Law “On the fundamentals of protecting the health of citizens in the Russian Federation.”

Criminal liability and punishment

They are brought to such liability for medical error in situations where a specialist caused harm. If poor quality medical care did not cause harm, then there can be no criminal liability.

The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation does not provide for the exact concept of medical error, but there are several approximate options when a specialist acted due to negligence:

Article 109. If a specialist incorrectly performed his duties, resulting in death, then he will be subject to restriction of freedom for 3 years (maximum term) or deprivation of it. An alternative to this could be correctional activities. The specialist is deprived of the right to hold a position (including activities) in this field.
Article 118. Serious harm to health - a specialist is deprived of liberty for no longer than a year, or punished with forced labor. Activity and position may be prohibited for up to 3 years. Another punishment option is limited freedom to 4 years.
Article 122. If a doctor performed his duties incorrectly and this resulted in the patient becoming infected with HIV, then the medical worker will face prison for up to 5 years (they may be replaced by forced labor). The ban on activities and positions is given for up to 3 years.
Article 123. When a doctor, contrary to the law, artificially terminated a pregnancy, thereby causing grave harm to the patient, including death, he may be imprisoned for up to 5 years (replacement with forced labor is possible). Removal from office and prohibition of activities is given for up to 3 years.
Article 124. When assistance was not provided contrary to duties (exception - a good reason), then two options are possible:

– harm of moderate severity – the specialist will be punished with a fine (maximum 40,000 rubles or the income of the victim), up to 360 hours of compulsory work, arrest for up to 4 months;

– grievous harm, death – the punishment is up to 4 years in prison (forced labor), while a ban on position and activity is possible for up to 3 years.

Article 235. If a person carries out activities in the field of medicine or pharmaceuticals without a license, then the harm caused entails a fine of up to 120 thousand rubles (or the amount of the victim’s income), forced labor or restriction of freedom for up to 3 years. If the death of the patient ensues, the punishment is imprisonment for up to 5 years (can be replaced by forced labor).

Medical malpractice should not be confused with negligence. The second concept is considered by the Criminal Code in Article 293.

How to prove?

To prove an error, you need to have certain documents, including:

medical record (must be an evidentiary record);
test results;
examination results (copies are possible);
a check or receipt for payment for services rendered or purchase of a prescribed drug.

You need to make copies of the collected documents and have them certified. For proof purposes, it is better to have witnesses.

You can file a complaint about a medical error in several instances. The choice depends on what result you want to achieve:

If you need to achieve disciplinary action, then it is enough to contact the manager of the institution. He may resort to a reprimand, deduction from salary, fine or deprivation of bonus.
If you want to punish not only the doctor, but also the institution, then you should contact the insurance company. After consideration of the case and examination, the institution faces a fine.
To receive compensation you must go to court. You will need to file a claim and provide evidence.
To initiate a criminal case, you need to contact the prosecutor's office. The proceedings are usually long, but if there is evidence, they bring the desired result.

Statistics and examples of medical errors in Russia

According to statistics for 2015, about 900 people suffered in Russia due to doctors’ errors. At the same time, more than 700 people died (317 of them were children). Statistics for the first half of 2016 indicate 352 deaths, including 142 children.

In the first half of 2016 alone, 2,500 thousand reports of medical errors were left with the Investigative Committee. As a result, more than 400 criminal cases were initiated.

There are many examples of medical errors across Russia. Here are some of them:

In the Primorsky Territory, a doctor refused to admit a patient to hospitalization, which resulted in his death. The punishment in accordance with Article 124 of the Civil Code was a suspended sentence of 2 years.
At the Moscow Research Institute of Eye Diseases named after. Helmholtz affected 9 patients at once. After injections with one drug, they became blind.
In Chelyabinsk Hospital No. 2, an 11-year-old girl was treated for almost 2 weeks, but the diagnosis was incorrect. A timely ultrasound would correct the error. The girl was saved, but in another hospital - her appendix was removed. A criminal case was opened only after the intervention of lawyer Bastrykin, so the investigators will also have to answer.
A pensioner died in Zhukovsky near Moscow. At the diagnostic center, he was given an MRI, which is prohibited if a man has a pacemaker implanted. The patient had a statement confirming its presence.

Video about medical errors

Watch also the program with active discussion by specialists of the current problem of medical errors and answers to many pressing questions:

There are many cases of medical errors in our country. They often end with serious consequences, including the death of patients. In case of a medical error, it is important to collect the necessary evidence and submit it to the appropriate authority. Such acts must be punished.

Get a lawyer's answer in 5 minutes

It is not uncommon for yesterday’s students to continue to copy “independent work” for which they were not prepared from a more experienced friend.

A doctor at a commercial clinic takes money for a service that is provided improperly. And the clinic specialist does not treat according to the protocol, simply because he does not have the necessary technical means and reagents. Sometimes such violations end tragically. What to do? How to hold a doctor accountable?

Concept of medical error

There is no strict concept of medical error in Russian law. Just as there is no separate article under which a specialist providing medical services could be held accountable.

There is Art. 41 of the Constitution, in accordance with which Russians have the right to medical care. There are laws aimed at protecting health and providing medical care through insurance, compulsory and voluntary. Finally, there are diagnostic and treatment protocols that doctors must follow when providing medical care. However, there is no mention of medical error anywhere.

There are several definitions of this concept in the legal literature. Typically, they describe the bona fide actions of a medical professional. A number of authors also include intentional actions in the category of medical error. However, this classification is not of great importance for a practicing lawyer. From a legal perspective, what is important is harm to the patient. If there is harm, then there may be liability.

The most informative definitions:

A medical error (ME) is an unintentional, conscientious error of a specialist, in whose actions there is no negligence or ignorance.
VO is the improper performance by a specialist of his duties. Action or inaction resulting in harm to health, even death.

Thus, according to most experts, an error by a doctor or other medical professional is precisely an unintentional error. Negligent or dishonest actions that have resulted or could have resulted in harm to the patient do not apply to VO. But there is another opinion.

But in any case, guilty actions will be qualified under the relevant article of the criminal code (CC) or administrative code (CAO). For example, intentional harm caused to a patient resulting in death will be classified as intentional murder. Negligent actions of a doctor will also be classified depending on the consequences, i.e. harm caused to a person or people. This can be mild, moderate or severe harm to health, death, creating a danger to human life, etc.

Article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

If serious harm is caused to the patient, the act will be qualified under the Criminal Code. As mentioned above, there is no special article in the criminal code, and the one that corresponds to the harm caused will be applied.

When considering and preparing for such cases, important features need to be taken into account. In relation to the doctor and the medical institution (clinic, clinic, hospital, maternity hospital, etc.) in which the crime occurred, there is actually a presumption of guilt. Those. It is they who will have to prove that the negative consequences for the patient’s health are not their fault. That the harm, if it occurred, was not caused by their culpable actions. This eases the fate of the injured patient, whose capabilities, unlike medical. institutions are very limited.

Discussion on topic:

Articles of the Criminal Code that can be applied in case of medical error:

109 Part 2 provides for the establishment of liability for a doctor or other medical specialist whose incompetent or careless actions resulted in the death of a patient. The maximum penalty is 3 years. And not necessarily colonies. Possible involvement in correctional labor.
118 part 2 - causing grievous harm due to careless professional actions. Serious harm is characterized by a condition in which there is a threat to life. This degree of harm also includes: deprivation of an organ, loss of organ functions, disfigurement, etc.
122 part 4 - infection of a patient with an incurable disease leading to death - HIV.
124 part 2 - inaction of a health worker resulting in harm. You can also be charged under this article if the necessary assistance was not provided in a timely manner.
293 part 2 - negligence.

In all cases, a forensic medical examiner and a medical dispute lawyer will be required. If the doctor is really guilty, and it can be established, then it is absolutely possible to bring him to criminal liability. Although it must be admitted that judicial practice is very sparse. Medical workers are subject to criminal prosecution only in cases where their guilt is obvious.

Causes of medical errors

Harm to health can be caused due to the following reasons:

Objective, which arose regardless of the actions of the health worker, his knowledge, prof. preparation. The first group includes the difficulty of diagnosing rare, poorly understood diseases. The same group includes time limitations for diagnostic measures caused by the patient’s condition. There are many situations when measures need to be taken urgently, and the diagnostics required in such cases last too long. This group of reasons, as a rule, does not make it possible to hold a doctor accountable under the law.
Subjective, having a direct relationship with the actions of the specialist. If the doctor inattentively questioned the patient or made incorrect conclusions from all the available information, it will not be easy to prove guilt, but it is possible, since in this case the doctor is guilty. But if the health worker did not prescribe the diagnostic measures necessary in such cases, which led to harm to health, then the grounds for persecution are obvious. However, a correct diagnosis often requires considerable experience in order to suspect a rare disease. An expert may have it, but a doctor in a rural hospital does not. That is why it is so infrequent that courts satisfy the demands of victims, and investigative bodies initiate cases if the disaster did not occur as a result of medical negligence.

Medical errors can also include defects in the provision of medical care. This concept includes:

Complications resulting from errors by health care workers (improper transportation of the patient, incorrect or untimely diagnosis, etc.).
Accidental harm. Usually occurs as a result of surgery.
The emergence of a new (different) disease as a consequence of treatment. The doctor may be found guilty in this case if any of the diagnostic and treatment measures were used unreasonably, i.e. were not required or were required in the wrong volume, etc.

Examples

In practice, prosecution of a doctor or institution for medical error is not very common. Most often, in connection with the guilty, unintentional actions of medical specialists, civil cases are initiated, allowing patients to receive compensation for actual and moral damage.

To criminal liability honey. institutions are not involved. In case of serious consequences for the patient due to the guilty actions of the doctor, a criminal case is initiated against the specific specialist. Such cases are very rare, since establishing the cause of negative consequences requires special knowledge, sometimes in different fields of medicine, equipment and many other things that the patient and his relatives do not have.

Examples from life

Responsibility under Art. 109 occurred for a resuscitator who inattentively examined an admitted patient with drug intoxication. As a result, an incorrect diagnosis was made and the wrong treatment was prescribed. The lack of proper medical care resulted in the death of the patient.
Responsibility under Art. 124 occurred for an ambulance paramedic who incorrectly pre-assessed the patient’s condition and refused hospitalization. The lack of timely medical care led to the death of the patient. The doctor was sentenced to 2 years probation. Unfortunately, in Russian reality such cases are not uncommon. Because hospitals are overcrowded and the availability of diagnostic tools is limited. To prove harm due to refusal of hospitalization, you need to obtain an expert opinion. To begin with, the opinion of another doctor can be very useful.
In one region of the country, a teenager was treated for more than 2 weeks after being diagnosed incorrectly. The story ended happily only because the relatives, on their own initiative, went to another medical institution, where an ultrasound was performed, which made it possible to establish the true cause of the illness.

The doctor’s guilt in the deterioration of health must not only be proven, but also established. And this is very difficult. Therefore, medical errors most often remain on the conscience of the specialists who made them. As the old proverb, once coined by one of the medical philosophers, says: “Every doctor has his own little cemetery.” In such a personal cemetery lie patients whom he could have saved, but at that moment he lacked experience (he was a young specialist), knowledge, ingenuity (the correct diagnosis came to mind later), and strength.