The vultures
IT IS easy to say that if government departments, whether national or provincial, did their jobs properly, there would be no need to sue them – to get them to do just that. This is the truth. But there’s also another side to the debate which members of the joint parliamentary committees on health and appropriations highlighted during their debates in the National Assembly last week – the propensity of some lawyers to use the government like a piggy-bank.
Now that the Road Accident Fund has been milked dry by unscrupulous attorneys and the taps have been screwed shut, health professionals fear that predator lawyers are turning to the Health Department – and in particular the provincial departments of health – to continue the bonanza they’ve long been accustomed to.
Some of the testimony in Parliament last week was harrowing: tales of lawyers colluding with one another, stealing patient files and – worst of all – preying upon people blinded by desperation and sadness, hamstrung by their inexperience and lack of sophistication. As a direct result of this, lawyers sometimes promise what appears to be a large amount, like R100 000, but then claim and win R2 million in court – and keep the balance.
It is exactly this predatory practice that made a mockery of the Road Accident Fund – and played a large role in its ultimate bankruptcy.
Patients have a right to good healthcare, and they have a right to sue for redress when they don’t get what they had every right to expect. The problem is that they’re being used as pawns by professionals who should, and do, know better – but don’t care.
This isn’t something the health departments can police – indeed, it’s not their place. This is something that fits better with the various regulatory bodies and institutions within the legal system: the various masters’ offices which tax cost awards, and the respective provincial attorney associations and law societies that should be getting involved as a public service to root out the vultures despoiling a proud profession that was created for no other reason than to serve those who need them the most.