The patient who is suing for compensationfor having two implants survive rather than one deseves compensation. Rather than the measily token compensation of two cents I would be more generous if I was on the jury and give her a fifty cent piece administered in the right place! My attitude is colured by our lovely five natural children and the extra one we took in in her late teens. One lovely family I know takes in foster children and recently obliged a government officer by taking a large family of children on a temporary basis. What a marvellous difference in attitude to children.
No doctor should be penalised for Good Samaritan acts gone wrong. There should be some requirement to show significant malpractice.

Regarding the twins - one solution might be to adopt one out. Why not?! I, for one, would be delighted to bring up another baby. So perhaps I could be placed at the top of a list that I am certain would unfortunately grow very long, very fast.

Why are victims of adverse events not quickly compensated by the state for the damage done to them - regardless if it was due to negligence or a forgivable mistake?

Why are lawyers with a vested interest in stretching out the case and insurance companies determined to avoid making a payout involved?

Why do we have doctors avoiding obstetrics because of huge insurance premiums?

Why have we been asking these same questions for decades?

Wanting to be compensated for an extra baby is a bit much as a baby can be given up and it can cost you none.

However this issue impacted my family. Due to an injury at birth my son suffered a disability. This disability is usually caused by the doctor not using the right manouvre when presented with a child with shoulder dystocia. It happened to my son.

Then, the Public system was incapable of catering for my son's disability. He wasn't disabled enough, they didn't have enough funding. He had to wait, often a years wait. He needed physio, an operation, more physio, speech therapy - just to name a few. We had to pay for our son to be treated by private doctors. It has cost us an arm and a leg.

We understand that the midwife (Doctor was too busy) didn't do it on purpose as she didn't know better, what we cant understand is why nobody tries to make amends or at least limits the impact financially and emotionally that these errors have on the families!

The consequences are simple. Those who cannot efficiently and competently perform a function are sued out of the profession. That happens because professional bodies protect rather than punish the incompetent.

Try getting a doctor to testify against another doctor, a politician against a politician, a banker against a banker, a soldier against a soldier, an NRL player against another NRL player. A union rep against a union rep. A PM against his Minister.

They won't do it so we have to use lawyers.

What would you prefer? That incompetent or worse professionals simply continue doing what they do so badly?

Point the finger where it belongs, at the failure of peers to self regulate rather than use the dog whistle of lawyers and suing as the alternative.

Try looking at the real reasons for the explosion of litigation rather than blame those injured and the lawyers who do prey on them.

It is simply cowardice.

Nice article

A couple of points though: MDOs (medical defence organisations) can no longer offer discretionary cover (meaning they ELECT to pay a claim) - this ceased along with a whole lot of reforms after the UMP debacle - MDOs now have to have a licensed insurer underwriting their policies (answerable to APRA) and it is an insurance policy in the same way that all other insurance companies write policies.

Also, there IS good samaritan legislation in certain states, I would need to research to check exact details but doctors can render assistance without payment in emergency situations without fear of being prosecuted, though it gets murky when you start talking about whether they have tried to do something outside their expertise. There is also legal precedent where doctors have been found guilty of NOT rendering assistance in an emergency situations.

Agree with the basic point that the NZ "no fault" comp scheme is worth investigating. Also, there is recent evidence to suggest that cerebral palsy is far more often caused by other factors in pregnancy than by perinatal anoxia, as was always believed to be the case. The record payout for med negligence in Australia remains the Calandre Simpson cerebral palsy case at 14m (reduced on appeal) so that is something to think about.

People who suffer misfortune obviously need to be looked after but as the author rightly points out, there should not have to be someone to allocate blame to, in order to ensure that this happens.

In South Australia a community hospital had to close and be sold to pay compensation to a child with cerebral palsy - although the evidence was very thin indeed that the hospital was at fault. An entire community had to go without for the sake of one child.
Massive compensation payouts have come to be seen as a right and there is some evidence that some people do not begin to "recover" until the compensation issues are settled.
The NZ no-fault system has problems but is preferable to the ever rising costs of medical insurance passed on to the consumer - and, heaven knows, their health system is expensive enough.
Those fortunate enough to have two healthy infants should be thanking their lucky stars not looking for compensation. (How are the children going to feel when they find out that their parents only wanted one of them?)

Communicat, as a close relative has cerebral palsy, I was interested in your throwaway line:

>>In South Australia a community hospital had to close and be sold to pay compensation to a child with cerebral palsy - although the evidence was very thin indeed that the hospital was at fault. An entire community had to go without for the sake of one child.<<

I assume that you are referring to the the Le Fevre and Port Adelaide Community Hospital case, since that hospital was indeed sold as a direct result of a South Australia Supreme Court assessment of $4.8 million in damages. Their insurance covered only the first $2m, and they had to sel the real estate, furniture etc. to try to raise the difference. As was observed at the time, "the plaintiff was left inadequately compensated and the community lost a hospital."

But you did not tell the whole story, did you?

"The hospital had admitted liability in respect of severe brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation during a birth managed by a midwife... As a result, the child was left with spastic quadriplegia and cerebral palsy." http://tinyurl.com/2o5btq (be aware this link downloads a 315k .pdf)

The evidence was "very thin", was it? Shame on you.

I am not a fan of litigation-for-profit of any kind.

But I am a fan of getting facts right, and of not exaggerating simply to support a view.

I am not so sure that those women don't have some right to sue.

Getting away from the emotional thing about "they don't want their kid," there is a genuine issue that they (allegedly) changed their minds and requested the gyn only implant one embryo. This was not done - result, 2 kids.

There is a fair chance they never had any intention of adopting out a kid, but SAYING they thought about it might enhance their chances of impressing a judge about the impact it has had on their lives. Maybe it is opportunism pure and simple ($400k upside) and they love their kids just like you and me??

Communicat, you have gone very quiet.

Was Le Fevre and Port Adelaide Community Hospital the case you were referring to?

If so, some sort of acknowledgment might be in order, that your statement "the evidence was very thin indeed that the hospital was at fault" was pure invention on your part.

Or do you have something else in mind. As I said, my interest was stimulated by the fact that the unfortunate victim had cerebral palsy, and that one of the major theories surrounding CP is that one of its likely causes is anoxia (or asphyxia) close to birth. If the case was indeed based upon "thin evidence", than this fact is important to know.

If, on the other hand, you simply chose your own interpretation, than that is also useful to know. For a couple of reasons.