Court orders hospital to compensate patient with Dhs500,000 for medical error in Abu Dhabi

Aya Al Deeb, Staff Reporter

 The Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal upheld a judgment issued by the Court of First Instance obligating a hospital to pay a compensation of Dhs500, 000. This is because a medical error forced him to undergo an urgent surgery to remove one of his testicles.

Earlier, the patient filed a lawsuit with the Court of First Instance demanding the hospital pay the costs incurred and compensate for the material and moral damage with Dhs3 million.

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It was said that he had visited the hospital, due to a sudden pain below the bladder. He was prescribed palliative doses by the attending doctor, but the next day, he went to the emergency department after he felt severe pain and swelling in the testicle.

The doctor diagnosed his disease as a bacterial infection and prescribed a palliative medicine to be taken for 10 days.

The plaintiff explained in the lawsuit that his pain had continued with swelling and exhaustion, so he was admitted to the urology department. Following examination, the doctor found that there was no perfusion in the left testicle and that it must be eradicated. It was removed in an urgent surgery, and was found out that he had a problem for three days.

The Medical Responsibility Committee proved in its report that there was a medical error by the doctor by 80 per cent and the female doctor by 20 per cent for their delay in reaching the correct diagnosis. The error led to testicular infarction, which caused its death, so it was extirpated, the report added. This had happened because the doctors did not perform the necessary examinations to reach the correct diagnosis, according to the medical committee.

Based on the report, the Court of First Instance ordered the hospital to pay the plaintiff Dhs500,000 in compensation for the material and moral damage he sustained, owing to the doctors’ medical error.

The two doctors appealed the ruling, pointing out that the plaintiff had no disability because the right testicle was normal, and that a medical report proved that his health status was normal.

Meanwhile, the plaintiff demanded the  amount of compensation be increased to Dhs3 million, pointing out that the extirpation of one of his testicles caused him a permanent physiological disability by 100 per cent in the function of the eradicated testicle due to the doctors’ mistake.

The Court of Appeal indicated that it was reassured by the medical report that proved the doctors’ mistake. The compensation awarded was sufficient to redress the material damage and grief caused to the plaintiff following his loss, it added.