The Medical Defence Union last night said there was a medical negligence litigation crisis in Ireland.
In a statement following yesterday's High Court ruling in the O'Mahony v Corr and the Bon Secours Hospital (Cork) case, it said the crisis had resulted from "the spiralling costs of compensating patients and defending doctors and a legal system which could benefit from reform."
The union, which is based in London, pointed to the O'Mahony case as an example of the "lengthy, complex, adversarial and expensive legal system in Ireland which does not benefit doctor or patient."
It said "obstetric cases in Ireland cost the MDU millions of pounds each year and account for 45 per cent of its case reserves for prospective claims".
The union had spent £4.6 million "in settling its four most expensive obstetric cases" in Ireland, which represented more than £75,000 per obstetrician member "for just these four cases". It pointed out that only 2 per cent of the MDU's Irish membership were obstetricians and to fund the claims it recently had to increase subscriptions for obstetric members substantially "to avoid a 25 per cent increase across the membership."
MDU's professional services director, Dr Christine Tomkins, said that in yesterday's case "Dr Corr was found not negligent after a very lengthy, complex and adversarial process. Dr Corr and the O'Mahony family have had to endure a very lengthy legal process. The case against Dr Corr should never have come so far.
"We believe any patient who has been harmed by medical negligence should be compensated swiftly and fairly, but we took this case to trial because we believe that our member was not negligent.
"It is our policy to defend our members all the way to trial if necessary. The current legal system does not benefit the patient, who may need to pursue litigation for many years and may still not receive compensation. Nor does it benefit the doctor who has to take part in lengthy, costly and very stressful litigation just to ascertain the merits of the case.
"We believe that a number of measures could be taken to resolve this situation."
She concluded by saying "a few simple changes could have a significant impact on the time it takes to resolve matters and on costs of litigation".
