Health Care Professional’s Negligence: Coverage of Health Care Professions, Ethics, Cases, Case Law -An Overview

Abstract

Health Care Professionals’ negligence cases were increasing day by day globally. They were creating an impact on public
health and also increasing mortality rates. Health care professionals’ negligence can also be termed as Medical Negligence,
which results in medical errors. Simply, it is defined as failure to exercise due care. Medical negligence is misconduct by
Physicians, Health Care Scientists, Pathologists, Pharmacists, Nurses, Lab technicians, or other hospital workers through
implementing wrong procedures in diagnosis or treatment, which can cause harm to the patients. Medical malpractice arises
due to a lack of awareness of Health care professionals; it may result in the causation of medical injuries to the patients. A
report by the National Library of medicine 2022 has revealed that 5.2 million cases annually were being recorded across
India. The WHO study has revealed that 2.6 million deaths were happening on an annual basis globally due to medical
errors. Not only physicians and pharmacists but also the health care Scientists should be aware of all the aspects during Drug
development. One best example of a medical error related to health care Scientists is the “Thalidomide tragedy” in 1960’s
which affected more than 10,000 babies across the world. It occurred due to the negligence of health care scientists, physicians
and pharmacists who developed and prescribed the drug. The scientists released the drug in the market without knowing its
potential for placental permeability and it was prescribed by various physicians across the world to treat motion sickness in
pregnant women without proper testing of the drug. Later, the Scientists uncovered that thalidomide is a racemic mixture of
two enantiomers; the R enantiomer has sedative properties. The safe R enantiomer was converted into the S enantiomer by in
vivo chiral inversion, which has teratogenic potential, resulting in phocomelia, which affected many babies across the world.
Proper measures need to be taken to reduce medical negligence cases and to improve the Patient safety. Strict Judiciary laws
need to be implemented to reduce the risk of medical negligence by health care professionals. Simulation training methods
for all the health care professionals can reduce the risk of medical negligence cases. The present chapter aims to discuss the
various types of Health care professional negligence cases and their adverse events, Consequences of medical negligence,
steps involved in the reduction of medical negligence and laws related to medical negligence. This chapter concludes that
proper training for health care professionals, creating awareness about the novel updates in medical or para-medical fields,
implementing Strict laws for health care professionals who are involved in misconduct, proper surveillance, thorough monitoring
of the patients throughout the treatment period, proper diagnosis of disease, and rational therapy for the patients can limit the
negligence cases of Health care professionals.