What is Medical Negligence in Ireland?

There are two essential elements to any medical negligence case and they are as follows:-

1. Breach of Duty and
2. Causation

Breach of duty arises where it can be proven that no other doctor of like expertise, skill and experience would have acted likewise, if faced with the same set of circumstances.

In other words, the care afforded to the patient was not of the requisite standard. It is not enough to say that another doctor would have acted differently. What must categorically be said is that no other doctor, acting reasonably, would have so acted.

The second ‘burden of proof’ which must be overcome is that of causation. Put simply, we must prove that ‘but for’ the medical negligence/breach of duty of the treating doctor (as outlined above), the outcome would have been far different.

If you want to successfully bring a medical negligence case in Ireland, you must have appropriate experts confirm breach of duty and causation.

I have been practising exclusively in this most  complex area of litigation  for over 16 years.

I have investigated hundreds of query medical negligence cases for clients over the years.

In Cantillons,  we take a step by step approach to our investigations.

The first step is to take detailed instructions from a client.

We always caution that it is  important to remember that not all medical errors or wrongdoing are classed as medical negligence and that the burdens of proof, as set out above, are high.

We encourage our clients, if they can,  to provide a written account of the summary  of events leading up to the query negligence,  when it occurred,  what in their view is the negligence and the relevant doctor or hospital involved.

Once we have reviewed this information, we will then be in a position to advise our clients and  outline what further steps, if any, we can take.

Often with our client’s  authority, we obtain copies of the  relevant medical records in order to review the matter further and see if we can identify areas of concern to justify taking the next step in our investigations which is the expensive step of commissioning a report from an appropriate expert.

Expert reports are extremely expensive. In our experience reports are costing in the region of between €2,000 and €4,000 (on average about €3,000).  The fees depend upon the complexities of the issues, and the amount of records required to be studied.  It may be necessary to obtain more than one report.  These funds are not funds paid to us as Lawyers, but rather are funds paid to independent medical experts for their time and expertise in reviewing the records and writing a report.  We do not advise our clients to part with their hard earned money lightly and only do so if we have identified areas of concern in the medical records and we are optimistic that an expert will confirm breach of duty, though of course we cannot give any guarantees to our clients in this regard.

If a case is brought successfully, this sum (or the vast majority of it), should be recovered.  If, however, a case is not brought, or if a case is brought and lost, then the sum will never be recovered.

Identifying an appropriate expert  all depends on the type of negligence we are investigating. So for instance, if we are investigating a birth injury case, we will usually first commission a report from an expert Obstetrician and if he/she confirms Obstetric negligence/breach of duty, we will then commission a causation report from an expert such as  Neuroradiologist who will look at the  x-rays, MRI scans  etc and advise on whether  the obstetric negligence caused an  injury or  a Neurologist (as x-rays don’t always show damage) who will review  the records and advise again  on whether  the obstetric negligence caused an  injury. Once we have reports from appropriate experts confirming negligence and causation (namely injury caused by the breach of duty), then you can proceed with a case and issued proceedings and serve on the negligent doctor/hospital.

Medical negligence cases are lengthy (the average time span from start to finish in my experience is approximately four years)  and expensive and I am always in awe of our brave clients who take on the might of the HSE or the MPS (the medical indemnifiers of many of the individual doctors). They know they are in good hands though and trust our expertise and experience. We use the best experts. We leave no stone unturned in our investigations. We have prosecuted many complex cases over the years including precedent making cases/cases which have changed the law in Ireland and more importantly changed the lives of the victims of medical negligence for the better. These include Kenneth  Best V Wellcome a case where we successfully proved to the Supreme Court  a link between a vaccine administered to Kenneth as a baby causing him horrific, life changing  injuries.  Another case is  Gibson v HSE, a medical negligence claim, in which we  achieved damages of €23 million, the highest ever award in Irish personal injury litigation to date.

Contact us at Cantillons Solicitors at +353 (0)21 4275673 or info@cantillons.com  if you would like more information.

* In contentious business, a Solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement.  Many Personal Injury Solicitors portray themselves as “no win no fee Solicitors Cork”. This term can be misleading, and it is essential that you discuss fees with the Personal Injury Solicitor you ultimately choose. At Cantillons Solicitors, we are entirely transparent.