Court allows medical negligence claim to proceed after woman dies following caesarean

What the court decided

The matter was heard in the North West High Court in Mahikeng. The family of the deceased represented by her father, Kereng Andrew Morakile, and a relative, Katlego MacDonald Chowe sued Life Peglerae Hospital and three doctors after the woman died following a caesarean section in April 2021.

The fourth defendant, Dr Shuping Mokgosi, had sought to strike the claim against him by way of an exception, arguing that the autopsy attributed the death to septic complications from a bowel injury sustained during the caesarean and that he was not involved in the surgeries.

Judge Tsautse rejected the exception. The court said the plaintiffs were not alleging Dr Mokgosi caused the original injury but were alleging that, once the patient was under his care in the ICU, his omissions could have contributed to her death.

Allegations in the pleadings

According to the court papers the judge reviewed, the woman was admitted to Life Peglerae Hospital in April 2021 and underwent a caesarean performed by obstetrician Dr Sam Amoakwa-Adu. During that operation she allegedly sustained a small bowel injury, which required emergency corrective surgery by Dr Kenneth Cletus Okeke.

After the second operation she was transferred to the ICU, where Dr Mokgosi assumed responsibility for her care. The family alleges that she was suffering from septic shock when admitted to intensive care and that her condition worsened while under Dr Mokgosi’s care.

The plaintiffs say nursing staff made urgent attempts to contact Dr Mokgosi that went unanswered; that he continued to manage the patient remotely by issuing instructions without personally attending her bedside or conducting a physical examination; and that he failed to arrange for a properly briefed substitute when unavailable. The family contends these failures amounted to negligent post‑operative care and materially reduced the patient’s chances of survival.

Legal test and the judge’s reasoning

In dismissing the exception, Judge Tsautse emphasised the role of the exception stage: the court must assume the facts pleaded by the plaintiffs are true and ask whether those facts, if proven, could support a legal claim. The judge found the plaintiffs had pleaded the essential elements of a negligence claim including duty of care, wrongful conduct, causation and damages sufficiently to proceed.

“The pleaded facts are capable of sustaining the conclusion that the fourth defendant’s conduct contributed to the harm suffered,”

The judge added that whether Dr Mokgosi’s actions actually caused or materially contributed to the death would be a question for trial, requiring expert medical evidence, ICU records and the autopsy report.

The court ordered Dr Mokgosi to file his formal plea within 15 days. The costs of the exception application will be decided as part of the main case.

What this means next

The ruling allows the family’s medical negligence lawsuit against Life Peglerae Hospital and the doctors involved to proceed to trial, where evidence will be heard on whether the ICU treatment deprived the patient of a realistic chance of survival.

Source

This article is based solely on reporting published by IOL.