A legal expert says suing for medical malpractice can come with a long list of challenges.
The comments come after a Nova Scotia woman says she was misdiagnosed with terminal breast cancer just weeks after being told she had no traces of the disease.
“It really matters whether or not somebody fell below the standards they were supposed to meet,” said Wayne MacKay from Dalhousie law school.
“You’d have to find out: how does this normally get done? What’s the normal practice? What did they do in this case? Did they fall below what was a reasonable standard? And that’s probably the key thing.”
This week, Gabriella Patey told Global News that Halifax’s IWK Health Centre made several errors when delivering her breast biopsy results.
On May 17, the hospital said her results were all clear. Then two weeks later, she was informed she had advanced-stage breast cancer — giving her about 10 months to live.
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But then just days after that, she was told the positive results were sent in error and the terminal diagnosis was meant for someone else.
“I’m still completely traumatized from the whole experience. I still feel it now. I feel like I’m outside of my body,” she said.
Patey says she’s receiving legal advice about the best path forward. According to MacKay, medical malpractice is a high standard to meet.
He says a civil action lawsuit would rely on whether there’s proof the IWK operated below professional standards when handling the test results.
“They’ve admitted she got a wrong diagnosis and that’s a very serious matter, but that in itself isn’t enough,” he said.
“She has to show that that happened in a way that was negligent. They didn’t follow all the normal procedures or they did something or somebody did something that was inappropriate.”
He says the psychological impacts of a false diagnosis could carry weight in court.
“The court has now evolved to the point where they do recognize that psychological damage is a serious matter too,” he added.
Patey received a verbal apology from the IWK on Tuesday. She says she was promised written confirmation of the hospital’s wrongdoing by Wednesday morning, but still hadn’t received it by late afternoon.
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