Medical Negligence in Nigeria: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Medical practice encompasses a variety of healthcare practice evolved to maintain and restore health by prevention and treatment of illness in human beings. The basic understanding of prehistoric medical practice is from the study of ancient pictograms that show medical practice procedure, as well as the surgical tools uncovered from anthropological sites of ancient societies while giving answers to whether doctors work within the existing framework guarding their medical practice and the ways of proving negligence against such erring medical practitioners, the difficulty in proving it and the need highlight whether the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules 2009 is reliable in securing a redress in cases of medical negligence other than under tortuous liability, likewise the challenges or difficulties encountered in proving same through tortuous liability. The aim of this study is to establish the origin of medical negligence and to outline the frameworks within which the medical doctors operate and negligence generally as regards medical practice and ways of proving negligence against medical doctors. It goes further to examine the involvement of medical practitioner in medical negligence and the scope of this work is limited to Doctors in Nigeria. This work recommends that proving medical negligence by way of enforcement of fundamental rights is a way forward through the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules 2009 and adopted the doctrinal, descriptive and analytical form of research because the study describes and analyses the state of the law in Nigeria as it relates to the area of focus in this work. In conclusion, a combination of punitive measures and infrastructural improvement of our country’s healthcare system will provide a holistic response to the prevalence of medical malpractice in Nigeria.