MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE AND LEGAL REMEDIES IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT In dealing with patients, the medical industry is highly respected and regarded because it deals with human lives. Patients undergo various procedures such as examinations, surgeries, and diagnostics, to name a few. Medical practice includes different areas or schemes in which a bona fide person is qualified and appropriately registered to practice. It includes any professional within the medical field, for example, Surgeons, Pediatricians, Doctors, Dentists, Pharmacists, Nurses, and so on. This long essay focuses on Medical Negligence both under the Civil and Criminal Laws in Nigeria. Negligence is a breach of a Legal duty or an omission to do something that a reasonable man would do. Negligence can also occur through actus reus and mens rea. Medical Negligence occurs when a medical practitioner fails to provide necessary actions or treatment that causes injury, harm, side effects, or loss of life to a patient. It is the failure to exercise the degree of care and skill that a reasonable man in such a profession under a similar circumstance would have done. There is an endless list of careless medical personnel incidents in Nigeria where the victims were unaware of their rights, let alone how to enforce them, and the medical personnel got away with it all. In Nigeria, there is an increase in Medical Negligence and Nigerians have experienced a deteriorated service by the Health Care providers. According to a paper by Bisola Ogundare, empirical work by a researcher shows that 61.69 percent of Nigerian patients feel that medical practitioners in Nigeria are arrogant and careless about their conditions and plights. Also, 33.3 percent of Nigerian patients indicated that their doctor’s treatment had caused them extra injury beyond the ones that took them to the hospital. Despite the large number of victims we have in Nigeria based on Medical Negligence, cases brought or filed to the legal sections are extremely low. This is due to the lack of proper knowledge on remedies to be obtained by victims of medical negligence, poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, and so on among the victims. Professional behavior in the medical area, whether favorable or unfavorable, has an immediate effect on third parties in addition to employers. This long essay also focuses on the Legal remedies provided for under Medical Negligence in Nigeria. Remedies are orders of court granted after a court trial. In the case of medical negligence, legal remedies are in existence for the patients. Remedies in this context can come in the form of Damages, Injunction, withdrawal of medical practitioner certificate, and so on The Law guarding the Medical sector in Nigeria is the “National Health Care Act 2014”. According to the citation of the Act, This Act provides a framework for the regulation, development, and management of a national health system and sets standards for rendering health services in the federation, and other matters connected therewith 2014.