Why do you need a medico-legal team? What is the business of the legal professions within the medical space? Should saving lives be bogged down by legal restrictions?
These are some of the usual questions that are raised when discussing health and the law.
Unfortunately, since having a legal outfit in hospitals is not common practice in this part of sub-Sahara Africa, its importance is lost and its relevance, buried under hundreds of hospital bedpans and medical diapers. This article aims to discuss rather briefly, 3 major misconceptions about the union between the legal practitioner and the healthcare sectors.
Misconception 1: Hiring a medical-legal team is unnecessarily expensive
The running of a standard Health Care Center is quite capital intensive. With available funds shared between the ever-increasing recurring daily expenditure on one part and the very pricey equipment purchases on the other, there does not seem to be spare money for the acquisition of anything of a non-medical nature.
The fact however remains that although having a legal team might cost an extra penny, it is definitely not unnecessary. Services ranging from giving sound legal advice to drafting agreements and contracts; to ensuring legal compliance with regulatory framework make a legal team an important arm of a hospital or Health Care Center.
As prevention is considered cheaper than treatment, having a legal team involved in your business is cheaper than a lawsuit or an ill-informed business decision.
Misconception 2: Medical lawyers are only required for court cases
Another grave misconception is the belief that medical lawyers are only required for court cases. Aside from litigation or general dispute resolution, the circumference of the medico-legal sphere accommodates diverse other legal services and offerings including but not limited to corporate and regulatory compliance services of both local and international natures; preparing, reviewing and managing employment contracts; mergers and acquisitions; importations and exportations of medical services; protection of medical and pharmaceutical intellectual property rights; capital market financing; equipment acquisition and financing; crowdfunding; and negotiating contracts with HMOs and Insurance Companies. There is so much a legal team can offer a hospital apart from court representation of members of staff or a patient.
Onboarding a legal team in your organisation or business is a preventive measure against the need for a litigation battle or a court case.
No matter how insignificant a situation, transaction or legal advice may seem, having a legal team makes a large difference.
Misconception 3: There are no checks for lawlessness and medical incompetence.
Every year, millions of patients suffer injuries, disabilities or die from medication errors, diagnostic errors, healthcare-associated infections, unsafe surgical care procedures, unsafe injection procedures, and radiation errors due to medical negligence and malpractice.
In Nigeria, most healthcare providers feel their patients do not have sufficient medical knowledge or understanding of their medical rights. Hence, they believe they can get away with anything and can navigate things themselves. This reckless mindset leads many hospitals to believe they do not need a legal team.
For instance, healthcare-associated infections occur in 10 out of every 100 hospitalized patients in low-income countries (World Health Organisation, 2019). In a country like Nigeria with lots of medically illiterate citizens, errors like these are left unaddressed and hospitals take advantage of this ignorance to be complacent in encouraging professional malpractices. A legal team in any such hospital will serve as the legal conscience of that hospital and ensure that the medical management is fully aware of the consequences of their actions, and their exposure to liability.
So far, we have seen that not only are these misconceptions untrue; but they are also unsafe.
A legal team in hospitals protects doctors from harassment by their patients; significantly reduces incidents of medical malpractice; protects the rights of both patients and the healthcare providers.
Remember, your legal team advances the best interest of your hospital; hence, they are always an added advantage and cannot be overvalued.
REFERENCES
1. World Health Organisation. (2019, September 13). Patient Safety.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/patient-safety
Author: Ishola Agboola, LL.M