Last week, we told you about the big judgments coming out of the Court of Appeal, and one case they heard during this session was a medical malpractice lawsuit brought against Dr. George Gough.
Last year, Supreme Court Justice Courtney Abel handed down a judgment against him, ruling that he must pay his former patient, Alice Arana-Gillett, just over 52 thousand dollars. That's the award of damages that Justice Abel said that he owed her for a botched medical procedure he performed.
That happened back in October of 2009, when she started suffering severe pain, and she was rushed to a private hospital. Dr. Gough was the doctor who took over the case, and he determined that she needed a surgery to remove her gall bladder. He decided that it should be laparoscopic surgery, and that she would be up and about in no time. He performed the surgery on her, and 2 days later, she started having severe complications. She went back to him, and he prescribed medication to do deal with the symptoms, and when that didn't work, he finally re-admitted her. Eventually, she was diagnosed with severe sepsis. Dr. Gough performed corrective surgery on her, and later a few days later, she had to go to the US for further medical treatment.
She sued Dr. Gough for malpractice, and while she didn't get the the 200 thousand in damages she was seeking, the judge did rule in her favor. Dr. Gough appealed the case, which was heard last week. So, while the Appeal Court judges were considering the outcome, Alice Gillett, asked the court to examine whether or not she got adequate compensation in damages for her pain and suffering. Today, her attorney, Nazira UC Myles, discussed the appeal with us:
Nazira Myles - Attorney for Alice Arana-Gillett
"The case arose from a gallbladder surgery she had at the Belize Medical Associates. At that time Dr. Gough was still working there, it was a laparoscopic surgery and there was an error that occurred in that surgery. Her common bile duct was lacerated. During the surgery it was discovered, so subsequent surgery had to take place about 8 days later and about 3 months after the 2nd surgery she had to travel to the US to take out some drain bags that were necessary for her to be able to recover properly. So it was always her position that, that error that occurred in the 1st surgery which is the laparoscopic surgery should not have occurred."
"At the Supreme Court level the learned trial judge found... we divided it twofold, the actual surgery whether there was negligence and then post operation care. He found that in the actual surgery he didn't have sufficient evidence before him to make a determination of negligence. However, in the post operation care he did find negligence. He found that Dr. Gough did not identify what the complication was within a reasonable time and 2) that he was wrong in not telling the patient what had occurred in the 1st surgery and why he needed to do the 2nd surgery. So he had awarded special damages a little over 30 thousand dollars and general damages, a little over 20 thousand dollars."
"Dr. George Gough was the one who appealed originally saying that there should have been no negligence found at all and then we put in a respondents notice asking the court to review the decision that the actual surgery, that there was evidence which the judge could have found negligence and we also cross appeal the quantum of the damages."
Daniel Ortiz
"Can't it have been just a simple instance of medical complications with your client? Some physicians are acknowledge that things happen during operations and medical procedures that go array all the time and it's not necessarily negligence."
Nazira Myles - Attorney for Alice Arana-Gillett
"The expert himself who was called in this matter indicated that even when nothing is done wrong by the surgeon, incidence like this could happen. So, I'm not saying that it couldn't be."
"However, it has always been our position that in this instant with my client that he was negligent. Why we say so is that not only coupled with what he admitted as to other incidences that also happened, he provided no defence as to how the laceration happened and also the expert made it clear, there are certain procedures that are done in the surgery that the surgeon himself has to do."
"It has always been a concern of my client from the inception when she came to see me, she said well you know Miss Nazira I think we will have difficulty not only because he determines who get licenses but because we won't be able to find a doctor who would come and be an expert before the court, given that if a license is being renewed it also depends on him. So as I had expressed to the court to the supreme court level, its cause for concern, because if we are saying that our standards can be lowered to this kind of practice, medical practice because the chairman of the medical board is allowed, or it occurs in surgeries, he does and what can we expect of other medical practitioners and I say its cause for concern because everyday people say if I want good medical treatment I'm going abroad, I'm not staying in Belize and I think this should be an encouragement to doctors who want to raise their levels so that we can have certain confidence in the medical treatment that they give us here in Belize. If we don't raise the standards for our self and we keep looking outside to be able to get the standard we expect then the doctors won't believe that it's okay to practice how they are practicing. It's just like us as lawyers. We have a code of ethics that we need to adhere to. If we are allowed to just present clients in a certain way then our standards will be lowered so I think that it should serve for the doctors who want to set their own standards higher so that we can have confidence in the treatment they give us."
The Court of Appeal has reserved judgement in the case to be delivered at a later date. In the original case, Justice Courtney Abel said, was critical of Dr. Gough's management of her post - surgical complications saying, quote, "…This court has concluded that the failure to disclose the fact of the laceration having taken place, amounts to what may even be described…as an attempt at covering up what in fact took place during the operation…" End quote.
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