‘She Told Me to Stop Making a Fuss’: Undignified Treatment, Medical Negligence Claims, and Desires for Apology

Abstract

Through analysis of case law on medical negligence claims in South Africa, this chapter considers how the refusal of health care providers to apologize for harm suffered when receiving medical care influences the actions of health users. It shows how the treatment of patients, in ways that they perceived as an assault on their dignity, feeds their belief that they have not received the best possible care from their interaction with the health system. While these assaults on dignity, by themselves, are not enough to make valid medical negligence claims, they in fact provide key insight into the motivations of litigants in seeking redress. The chapter shows that even if human error cannot be completely removed from health care provision, healthcare providers can reduce their exposure to litigation by having an approach that is centered on treating patients with dignity, both during and after the provision of medical care to them. Such dignified and respectful treatment of patients, regardless of outcome, is the ultimate acknowledgement of their pain and is a necessary first step in giving effective apologies for medical wrongdoing.