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Leaders in Medical Negligence Claims and Road
Accident Fund Claims since 1974

This premier medico-legal Practice was established in 1974 and has grown to become the oldest and largest specialist Plaintiff Personal Injury and Medical Negligence Practice in South Africa. Its founder, Ronald Bobroff, was President of the Law Society, is current President of SAAPIL, and has served as chairman of numerous local and provincial law councils. He is also a guest lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School. The Practice incorporates a significant number of the most innovative, creative and productive lawyers currently to be found in South Africa.

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Recent Testimonials

 

Hi Darren, trust you are keeping well,

 

Just enquiring if the costing is being finalised and the case nearing to an end?

 

Thank you once again for the support given to my family when we needed it the most, your team is the best when one needs professional help and any form of compassion.

 

May you all be richly blessed.

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Ronald Bobroffs 702 Talks

Ronald Bobroff regularly appears on Radio 702 discussing legal matters.

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Informed Consent
This topic is most important if you are having or have had surgery.  Subjecting yourself to surgery entails agreement to submit oneself to the most severe form of assault and injury imaginable, and usually involves the following:
  • The anesthetic literally poisons your system to the point of unconsciousness and you are kept alive artificially by a mechanical breathing machine.  Most operations also involve the patient being paralyzed
  • The surgeon slices open the body with a razor sharp scalpel and cuts through the muscles
  • Orthopaedic surgery usually involves cutting, drilling, breaking, sawing and screwing of the bones
  • Diathermy – the electrical burning of tissue and blood vessels so as to prevent or limit bleeding.
After all this "torture", the muscles and skin are stitched closed and the patient brought back to “life”.

In our law, it is the Patient’s consent to such procedures that cancels out what would otherwise be a vicious assault, and patients agree to this “assault” because having been properly informed as to the need and nenefit of undergoing such procedures, they consent.

The Law emphasizes patient autonomy and/or self determination. Specifically the treating doctor is ethically and legally obliged to:
  • Make an appropriate and correct diagnosis
  • Ensure that the patient understands why treatment is necessary and the consequences of not having the proposed treatment
  • Advise the patient of alternative treatments
  • Suggest specialist referral and/or second opinion where the condition is rare or the proposed treatment controversial
  • Properly inform the patient of the probable risks reasonably inherent in the proposed treatment.  The above principles were laid down in the leading SA case of Castell vs Greeff 94(4) (SA 408C).

A later case also held that absence of informed consent alone will not sustain a claim for damages unless the lack of informed consent was “causally connected to the harm sustained”. In that case, the dentist carrying out the procedure had failed to warn the patient of the risk of nerve damage, and which in fact resulted in that case from the wisdom tooth extraction.

There was no evidence of any negligence on the part of the dentist and the patient testified that he would not have refused the surgery even if he had been warned of the small risk of nerve damage resulting.

If you are a victim of medical negligence or would like to get Ronald Bobroff & Partners Inc to assist you with a Informed Consent Claim please contact us or call us on 011 880-6781 or on our 24hour toll free number 0860 100 184.

 
 

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