Injury Compensation News

There has been much commentary in the media about the new Health Services Executive (HSE) chief executive Cathal Magee facing a difficult first year implementing significant budget cuts. However, he also has a significant challenge changing the internal staff culture of the HSE, which was most recently criticised by the Ombudsman for its “rotten culture of secrecy” when dealing with medical malpractice.

Cathal Magree should start by reading the paper in August 17th issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine about a program launched by the University of Michigan Health System that encouraged health workers to report medical mistakes. The program included a procedure for telling victims about errors, who exactly made the error, what steps were made to prevent similar mistakes in the future, and mostly importantly, making a sincere apology to the patient or family. The procedure also included a process for offering fair compensation.

Reporting and explaining errors honestly to patients obviously leads to faster resolution of disputes, but also reduced the number of lawsuits by 36%.

Garreth Quinn of Clondalkin, County Dublin, has been awarded €25,000 in the Circuit Civil Court yesterday for a needle injury sustained on a bus seat. The incident happened in February 2005 when Quinn sat down on the 78A at the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre terminus, sustaining a needle injury to his leg from a syringe.  The bus driver immediately called an ambulance, which brought him to a hospital. Although tests on the syringe did not find any contamination, it was still deemed prudent to undergo blood tests and inoculations.  It took 3 years before it could be guaranteed that Quinn was not infected with hepatitis B or hepatitis C.

The bus accident claim was taken against Dublin Bus.  Judge Joseph Mathews found that visual inspections by Dublin Dub staff were not sufficient and that crevices in seats on buses should be probed for needles and syringes.  The injury compensation award consisted of €15,000 for suffering to date and €10,000 for future suffering.