Lidia Monteverdi on 2GB discussing Medical Negligence 31 July 2021

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CS – Chris Smith/LM – Lidia Monteverdi /C1,2,3, etc – Callers

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Listen to the podcast

Read the transcript below:

CS       I’ve got a fair few emails today, we’ll try and get through as much as we can in the time we’ve got allotted. Helen says, I had surgery and I’ve just found out that the surgeon who operated on me has been investigated and had conditions put on his registration, what does this mean for me?

LM     Hi Helen, look this likely means that a complaint was made by someone about your surgeon to the regulatory body. Now in New South Wales that body is The Healthcare Complaints Commission and it has powers to investigate when complaints are made, if there are issues raised with respect to public health and safety either relating to facilities like hospitals or individual practitioners such in your case. Now if after its investigation the HCCC considers the practitioner’s conduct is serious then it can prosecute the practitioner for unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct. This can lead to conditions being placed on the practitioner’s registration like in your case or their registration being cancelled. So look what I would say is that if you have some concerns about the treatment that you received I’d urge you to get some legal advice because it might be that the conditions placed on your surgeon’s registration arose because she or he was negligent in their practice.

CS       Yeah, worth asking the questions. Alright Scott has sent us an email, Scott says I had surgery 4 years ago but I’m only just now starting to have some problems which I think are related to my surgery. Are there time limits for claiming medical negligence?

LM     Scott thanks for your question, generally speaking you have 3 years from the date that you discover negligence has occurred within which to commence any Court proceedings. The date your limitation period starts to tick is not always the date of your surgery or treatment although in many cases it is, so if you are only just starting to have issues then it sounds like you would only have recently discovered negligence but what I’d say is that it’s extremely important to obtain legal advice as soon as possible so that you know when your limitation period expires because if it has expired then you won’t be able to pursue a claim.

CS       And maybe the other piece of advice might be for him to collect whatever you know, contemporaneous notes he has or any recollections he has about how he’s felling differently?

LM     Yes, that’s exactly right, that’s always really helpful.

CS       And in terms of costs is he looking at a big bill?

LM     Look our costs at Turner Freeman are charged on a no win, no fee basis, so Scott that means that we don’t charge you anything unless or until you get some compensation so it’s always worthwhile asking the question because there’s no out of pocket costs to you and then you won’t be wondering what the answer is.

CS       Excellent to know. Lidia have a great weekend, thank you for that.

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