Halifax Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

I found a fascinating lecture (at least fascinating to medical malpractice lawyers) posted on You Tube the other day.

Dr. Brennan, Professor of Law and Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health is one of the United States' leading experts on medical malpractice and patient safety. Dr. Brennan authored the famous Harvard Medical Practice Study.

Dr. Brennan considers a case study illustrating whether or not the American medical malpractice system improves patient safety.

Brennan believes that existing efforts aimed at preventing medical malpractice and improving quality of medical care are not effective.

Advocates of "reforming" the medical malpractice system lobby for limits to the ability to sue, capping the amount of compensation victims can recive and limiting the fees that medical malprcatice lawyers can charge.

Brennan's opinion is, to use a medical anology, that these "reforms" treat the symptoms of the problem rather than treating the illness of negligent or sub standard medical care.

Medical malpractice kills more than 24,000 Canadians each year.

For example:

• As many as 24,000 patients die each year due to “adverse events” (doctor speak for "something bad happened").

• 87,500 patients admitted annually to Canadian acute care hospitals experience an adverse event.

• 1 in 13 adult patients admitted to a Canadian hospital encounter an adverse event.

• 1 in 19 adults will potentially be given the wrong medication or wrong medication dosage.

• 37% of adverse events are “highly” preventable.

• 24% of preventable adverse events are related to medication error.

• The most common areas for an adverse event to occur was surgery followed by medicine related errors.

Nearly a quarter of Canadian adults (5.2 million people) report that they, or a member of their family, have experienced a preventable adverse event (lawyer speak for medical malpractice) according to a report released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Despite these numbers only 2% of Canadian medical malpractice victims receive compensation!

If you or a member of your family have suffered an injury that you think may be due to medical malpractice, feel free to contact me for a free copy of my book The Consumers Guide to Medical Malpractice Claims in Canada: Why 98% of Canadian Medical Malpractice Victims Never Get a Penny in Compensation!

The federal government is considering declaring an ingedient used to make chewing gum as toxic after tests linked it to cancer in lab rats.

The Canadian Press reported that vinyl acetate is one of 17 substances Health Canada could recommend be deemed toxic in a draft report to be published Saturday.

There has been no link demonstrated between vinyl acetate and cancer in humans.

Many major chewing gum manufacturers were quick to point out that their products do not contain vinyl acetate.

I don't smoke and now it looks like I have to stop chewing gum. If they find out that coffee causes cancer I am in big trouble.

The public inquiry investigating concerns about botched cancer screening tests by former pathologist Rajgopal Menon heard testimony today of concerns about the disgraced pathologist.

Jeff Carter, director of medical services at the Miramichi Regional Hospital, testified he heard concerns about Menon beginning in 2002.

Carter said while he was the regional risk management co-ordinator at the hospital in 2002 he heard complaints about Menon including:

Slow turn around times completing tests.

Complaints that hundreds of Menon's reports were incomplete.

Menon averaged 11.4 days to complete tests that took other pathologists 3.6 days.

Carter testified once he started to look into Menon's work he found there were concerns on record about the pathologist that dated back to 1998.

The New Brunswick Health Authority is re-examining nearly 24,000 cases he handled between 1995 and 2007.

This only a day after officials with New Brunswick's Health Department testified they had no idea there were concerns about Menon's work in Miramichi before the suspension of his licence last year. Lise Daigle, director of hospital services, testified she worked closely with lab consultants for years, but no issues were brought to her attention about the Miramichi lab and the work of Dr. Rajgopal Menon.

Ms. Daigle testified the day after the former Deputy Minister of Health testified that she heard complaints about Menon but she didn't think Menon was "incompetent".

If Ms. Daigle's testimony is true, it begs the question: Who was more incompetent, Menon or officials at the Health Department? What do you think?

The first witness at an inquiry into flawed pathology services at a New Brunswick hospital testified that she received complaints about Dr. Rajgopal Menon, the pathologist whose botched cancer screening test results lead to the inquiry.

But former Deputy Minister of Health apparently did not consider the complaints to be serious. The Canadian Press has reported that Nora Kelly testified that:

... there were general comments from his colleagues about his slow work habits, his tardiness and missing slides, but no one suggested his work might be sub-standard.

"They didn't like the way he operated, but they never said that he was incompetent," Kelly told commissioner Paul Creaghan, a retired judge.

You can read more about the situation in previous posts:

Negligent Cancer Screening Put Patients at Risk: Miramichi Hospital and
Negligent Cancer Screening in New Brunswick May Lead to Criminal Charges and Medical Malpractice Claims.

Kelly's testimony hints at larger problems to come. She said there is a critical shortage of pathologists across the country. "Maybe 30 pathologists" graduated last year, and there has never been a year when more than 50 entered the system.

"It's not getting any better. Everybody is getting older. . . . There's going to come a point where, for patient safety, we'll not be able to offer certain services. Nobody wants to hear about this or talk about it, but frankly I'm convinced that may very well happen."

With health care spending consuming an ever increasing share of provincial budgets, a world wide shortage of medical specialists, and an aging population in need more medical care it appears that cracks are starting to appear in Canada's health care system.

What can we do to fix the problem? More money for medical schools to train doctors? Allow more foreign trained doctors to practice in Canada? Privatization of parts of the health care system? What do you think?

Newfoundland's Eastern Health Board is trying to gag it's employees by getting them to sign confidentiality agreements.

George Tilley the former CEO of Newfoundland's largest health board didn't tell his counterparts at the province's other health boards about breast-cancer testing errors until two months after he discovered them.

His excuse? He was waiting the lab to call him back!

To tell him what? How about: "Hurry up and do something dummy, people are dying!"

Tilley has testified he would "do a lot of things differently" in hindsight.

Here's hoping he is never put in a position where he has the power to make that kind of decision.

The inquiry has already heard testimony that senior members of Premier Danny Williams office knew about the botched cancer tests for almost 3 months before the information was made public.

...since I have been preparing for a month long jury trial that starts next week on behalf of a client who suffered a minor traumatic brain injury (MTBI). I have found the more I prepare, the luckier I am.

MTBI claims are among the most difficult of personal injury claims to prove. By definition, imaging studies (MRI, CT scan, X-ray) are normal. Often there is no loss of consciousness and sometimes the victim has not even suffered a blow to the head.

The effects of MTBI are subtle. It can be difficult to convince a jury that someone who looks so "normal" has suffered a debilitating injury.

If you are looking for more information about MTBI claims, I highly recommend the Traumatic Brain Injury blog by my collegue Bruce Stern. You can take a look here.

You can also find more information at the Brain Injury Association of Canada.

If you are looking for a Halifax personal injury lawyer you can check out our website.

Bisphenol A has been officially named a dangerous substance by Health Canada. The Globe and Mail reported the story here.

There is wide concern that the hormonally active chemical, which is commonly used in products like baby bottles, can have long term negative health effects. Toxicnation.ca published a helpful list of baby bottles that are manufactured using the chemical. You can find the list here.

The move is widely expected to be the first step in an outright ban on the chemical in products designed to contain food or drinks.

Bisphenol A is one of the:

...most widely used synthetic chemicals in modern industry. It is the basic building block for polycarbonate, the see-through, shatter-proof plastic that resembles glass, and is also used to make the epoxy resins lining the insides of most tin cans, along with some dental sealants, sports helmets, and compact discs.

You can read more about the chemical on Kathy Farber's blog Non-Toxic Kids.

Next time you go to the gym, take a look and see how many people are chugging their water out of Bisphenol bottles. The question is, what else are they chugging?

Trasylol (Aprotinin) is a drug used during heart bypass surgery to help reduce bleeding and the need for blood transfusions. But a documentary on CBS's 60 Minutes last night suggests the drug may be responsible for contributing to the loss of one thousand lives a month.

You can watch the whole story here.

On January 26, 2006, The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published an article by Dr. Dennis Mangano reporting an association of Trasylol (aprotinin) with serious renal toxicity (kidney failure) and ischemic events (cardiac arrest and stroke) in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting surgery.

Although the Trasylol study was published in January 2006, Bayer failed to disclose the study to the FDA until after an advisory panel meeting in September 2006. The study's researcher, Dr. Dennis Mangano, has said that 22,000 patients could have been saved if Trasylol had been taken off the market when the January 2006 study was first published.

The F.D.A. issued a Public Health Advisory in November 2007. On November 5, 2007 the drug manufacturer Bayer agreed to suspend marketing of the drug at the request of the F.D.A.

Bayer suspended marketing of Trasylol (aprotinin) in Canada in November 2007 following a request from Health Canada.

Bayer is now facing hundreds of lawsuits in the United States alleging injury of death due to the drug and the Defective Drug Claims are likely to spread to Canada, just like the Vioxx litigation.

Is this another case of a drug manufacturer puts dollars over lives? You decide after watching the video.

Injury is the leading cause of death and disability among children and adolescents in
Canada. A new report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information indicates that the number of children injured each year in Canada has declined steadily over recent years.

The rate of child injury in 2005–2006 was 36.7 per 10,000 persons, compared to 40.6 per 10,000 persons, in 2001–2002.

The authors of report suggest that the decrease in pediatric injuries could be due to a variety of
factors, including:

Improved injury-prevention programs;
Changing practice patterns with changing hospital admission criteria;
Administrative changes; and
Legislation designed to target child safety concerns.

The leading cause of injury was unintentional falls (37%) with double the number of injuries of the second leading cause of injury, car accidents (18%).

It is perhaps not surprising that car accidents resulted in more serious injuries. The study reports that falls resulted in 24,433 hospital days with an average of 2.3 days required for treatment. Whereas car accidents resulted in 32,118 hospital days with an average hospital stay of 6 days required for treatment.

The leading cause of injury that resulted in death among children and adolescents under age 20 years was car accidents (55.5%).

While the trend towards fewer injuries is encouraging, more study is needed to identify the specific reasons for the decrease so that governments and hospitals can determine how to most effectively spend limited health care and trauma prevention dollars.

You can read the whole report here.

Driver fatigue is a factor in 20% of fatal car crashes and the cause of more than 400 deaths due to car accidents every year according to a new report from the Highway Safety Roundtable.

The study also reported that an alarming 20 percent of Canadians admit to falling asleep at the wheel at least once over the last year.

I was actually a little surprised by the reports findings. In my practice representing people who have suffered injury as a result of motor vehicle accidents, I would have said driver fatigue was an issue in close to 50% of all serious car crashes.

The Canada Safety Council has posted a website: Tips to Avoid Drowsy Driving that is worth a look.

More on the cancer screening fiasco unfolding in New Brunswick. The Miramichi Hospital claims in a lawsuit filed by the disgraced pathologist that is the subject of potential criminal charges that there were issues about the doctors work as far back as 1998.

Dr. Rajgopal Menon was suspended by New Brunswick's College of Physicians and Surgeons following a complaint from the Miramichi Regional Hospital Authority about Menon's "deficient practice" involving "erroneous interpretations of surgical specimens."

Menon sued the Hospital over the allegations. In a defence filed by the Hospital Authority officials claims that Menon's:

"lack of professional standards have resulted in patients being placed at risk as well as other physicians, and in particular surgeons, who must rely on (him) for accurate and timely pathological diagnosis."

The Hospital's allegations are a double edged sword. If the facts in the defence are correct, it may mean that cancer patients who have been "placed at risk" (not able to receive timely treatment) due to Menon's "lack of professional standards" may have a potential medical malpractice claim against the Hospital Authority for failing to take proper steps to ensure patient safety when it became aware of the risks due to Menon's "lack of professional standards".

The Canadian Press has reported the story of one man whose father died of cancer in 2007 just weeks after the disease was discovered by his doctors in Tracadie, New Brunswick.

The man's son, Roger Vautour:

...was told by officials at the Miramichi Hospital that laboratory tests on his father in 2003 were handled by Dr. Rajgopal Menon and will be part of a comprehensive review of the pathologist's work.

The "comprehensive review" is going to involve over 15000 test results from potential cancer patients stemming back more than a decade! The potential liability for the doctor, and the Health Authority, is difficult to fathom.

Dave Irwin was one of the famous Crazy Canucks, the legendary Canadian Olympic ski team. He was one of the greatest skiers in Canadian history, and one of the fastest skiers in the world. Now he is a survivor of brain injury; the result of repeated concussions from some of his spectacular wipe outs during his downhill racing career.

I just watched the documentary Downhill Racer on CBC's Fifth Estate about Dave Irwin. It is a powerful story about Irwin's brain injury and his struggle for recovery.

If there is anyone who still doubts that concussions due to sports injuries can have catastrophic consequences, they need to watch this documentary.