A new study has shone the spotlight on the corrupt involvement of legal practitioners in illegal and fraudulent acts and their role in litigation on issues of medical negligence.
A study co-authored by Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) research Professor Evangelos Mantzaris of the Faculty of Management Sciences at MUT and Professor Pregala Pillay of Stellenbosch University analysed the legal demands, mediators and negligence in Gauteng’s Department of Health in 2017.
MUT said the analysis painted a grim picture of a department faced with 2 317 cases of “medical negligence” with the “contingency liability” of between R18 billion to R21bn at the end of that financial year.
The study explained that in almost all cases, these legal actions against state institutions have been initiated by members of the legal profession who over the years have taken advantage of circumstances to enrich themselves illegally and immorally.
“In most instances, they collaborate directly or indirectly with medical or nursing staff who direct them to existing health problems facing patients. There have been cases where lawyers themselves or their ’representatives’ (medical practitioners, nurses or ’mediators’) are ’searching/haunting’ public hospitals mainly to discover patients with medical problems, usually children with defects. After making their own notes or illegally obtaining copies or originals of medical reports, they file cases against the Health Department,” the study explained.
The study further revealed that alleged legal syndicates that operated in the public health sector did so either separately or in collaboration, occasionally and referred to reports of scams defrauding government departments through “state attorneys strategically losing cases or settling out of court and sharing the payouts”.
The Eastern Cape was singled out for having the highest number of cases where the state attorneys settled out of court and “shared the payouts in the form of kickbacks”, the study found.
“There are public servants within the Health Department who help lawyers in state fraud by photocopying documents that are instrumental in the duplication of claims. ‘Spotters’ who are used in hospitals and clinics are those stealing patients’ documents, selling them to lawyers who then institute claims. In a number of cases, the claimants themselves have no knowledge of the claims in their own name,” the study said.
The study also found that private legal practitioners were resorting to advertising their services in public hospitals by using advertising pamphlets and nurses and other medical staff. The “helpers” are the private legal practitioners’ contacts with those with medical problems.
According to the study, the Law Society of South Africa’s response to the allegations against legal practitioners in the State Attorney’s Office and private legal practitioners was that it was an effort to tarnish the reputation of the legal profession.
The analysis said that comprehensive review of the rules, regulations, legislation and policy governing the Office of the State Attorney was required.
“The procurement policy and supply chain management systems needed to be strengthened, along with internal controls and internal audit to effectively play their role of prevention, deterrence, monitoring, analysing, detecting, investigating, and responding,” the study concluded.
@Chulu_M
@TheStar_News