THE HOSPITAL RESULTS WERE WRONG AND I SUFFERED BECAUSE OF THEM. CAN I SUE FOR MY EMOTIONAL SUFFERING?.

📸: Unsplash. 

 

It was all peer pressure. Salima and her friends decided to go for HIV tests because they were graduating and that was how it all began. The lab person gave Salima the bad news mbu she was not only HIV positive, but she also had a lung cancer and ‘that cough’ was TB. For the next two months, Salima went into depression, lost weight, became ‘faded’ and even failed to show up for the job she had been given. Her mother even had to come from the village to console her and she is the one who encouraged her to try another hospital.

It turns out that all the results were negative. Salima is relieved, but now she wants to know who is going to pay for all the suffering she has gone through and the job she lost.

 

WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?

Generally, courts do not allow people to sue for emotional damage because it is difficult to measure and calculate this. (Courts like things that can be measured and compensated for). However, when a hospital has done something wrong that made you suffer this harm/damage, you are allowed to sue the hospital for medical negligence.

When we talk about this negligence, we mean that the doctor/ hospital acted in a way that a reasonable person in their position wouldn't have, and that this negligence caused harm. Salima was given a false/wrong diagnosis which another doctor would not have done so this can amount to negligence.

To sue and have a chance of winning this case, Salima needs to prove that the incorrect diagnosis directly caused her suffering, depression, weight loss, and job problems and she can then prove that without this false diagnosis she would not have suffered these damages or injuries. 

So instead of asking for compensation for emotional pain, she has to ask for the things that directly happened like lost wages, and any medical expenses related to the incorrect diagnosis and weight loss which the courts will call damages. (Damages are awarded for pain, suffering and mental torture caused by the result of medical negligence).

Source: BarefootLawyers