ER DOCTOR NEGLIGENT FOR GIVING WRIST FRACTURE PATIENT BAD FOLLOW-UP ADVICE
Patient attended in hospital a few days after being casted to address a Colles fracture of the left wrist. During this follow-up visit, the attending doctor effectively conveyed to the patient that she had to do nothing until the cast was ready to be removed in about six (6) weeks. During this visit, however, the wrist fracture was not uniting properly, which was something that ought to have been clearly recognizable by any doctor. The court accepted the evidence of the only orthopaedic doctor to testify at trial, to the effect that if the plaintiff patient had obtained a timely orthopedic follow-up, she would likely have achieved a highly satisfactory outcome, with little or no functional deficits, and free from the subsequent surgery she had to endure to correct the malunion.
In this instance, the court accepted that the plaintiff was very compliant with instructions, such that if she was given the proper instructions to have her wrist quickly re-assessed by an orthopaedic surgeon, she would have done so. In the end, liability was established because the court concluded that the plaintiff’s poor outcome was caused by the doctor’s “failure to provide his patient with verbal instructions to see an orthopedic surgeon within 7-10 days and failure to explain the significance of seeing an orthopedic surgeon within a 7-10-day time frame or the risks associated with not doing so.” The court was convinced that it was “more likely than not that, but for” the doctor’s negligence, the plaintiff’s unfavourable outcome “would have been avoided.”
Damages were agreed upon, and not subject to court assessment.
Heikamp v. Renfrew Victoria Hospital et al., 2022 ONSC 780
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc780/2022onsc780.html