Abstract
Medical malpractice litigations have become a serious social and public health problem in contemporary Ukraine, however peculiarities of improper medical care in anesthesiology is little known inside the country.The aim of the study – to evaluate the medical malpractice litigations provided by anesthesiologists in Ukraine.Materials and Methods. A retrospective review of all alleged medical malpractice cases (350 in total) between 2007 and 2016 handled at Ternopil, Zhytomyr and Chernivtsi Regional Bureaus of Forensic Medical Examination, was performed. The paper analyses official data of court verdicts in cases of medical malpractice litigations taken from Ukrainian State Register of court decisions for the same time period.Results and Discussion. 32.5 % of all of medical malpractice litigations were initiated against anesthesiologists. Lacks of health care provision committed by anesthesiologists were detected in 70.2 % of the cases. Unreasonable medical care occurred in cases of serious Unintentional medical care was confirmed by forensic medical expert commission as a rule in diagnostics (33.8 %) and medical procedures or medical treatment (26.4 %). Mistakes in medical records were detected in (24.7 %) of the cases, institutional errors – (11.1 %), ethical errors – (4.0 %). Insufficient or incomplete medical care provided by anesthesiologists seemed more frequently (44.5 %), inopportune medical care – 33.6 %, unskillful medical care 20.3 %. Severe consequences for the patients took place in all of the cases. A causal relationship between the damage claimed by the patient or his family and improper medical care were found in 30.0 % cases.Conclusions. Anesthesiologists lead the top list of physician specialties involved in claims in Ukraine. Diagnostic and institutional errors, improper performance of medical procedures and medication errors are seemed most frequently in medical malpractice cases in anesthesiology. The majority of the medical mistakes became due to different objective reasons. Approximately a half of all of the studied cases faced together with breach of standards of care followed by the poor quality of the medical personnel.
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