Gynaecologist in sterilisation case cleared of blame

A CAPE Town gynaecologist branded a liar in a wrongful sterilisation case last year has been vindicated.

In May 2012 Dr Omar Pandie was found by the High Court in Cape Town to have wrongfully sterilised patient Rethaan Isaacs without her consent. Judge Monde Samela ordered Pandie to pay Isaacs more than R400 000 in damages and labelled him an “outright liar”.

However, last week, when the matter went on appeal before the same court, the ruling was overturned, with a bench of three judges finding that at least one of the hospital staff at Netcare Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital was at fault and Pandie should never have been held liable. The court also found Samela was out of line for labelling Pandie a liar.

Isaacs had denied ever consenting to be sterilised, but the court found that, while she had not agreed in writing, she had verbally given consent to Pandie the day before she was due to deliver her fourth child by caesarean section in 2004. It also found that she had retracted consent the next day before the surgery, but this was not communicated to Pandie, who then performed both the caesarean and the sterilisation.

The court found no one had informed Pandie that Isaacs had withdrawn her consent. And, while he did not check her folder for written consent, this was consistent with the practice that the scrub sister was responsible for doing so.

Pandie testified that when he asked the scrub nurse if they were proceeding with sterilisation, she confirmed this. It was only after the procedure that she told him Isaacs had not consented. The court said it had to conclude that the nurse, who has since died, did not check the folder before the surgery.

“One must conclude, at least for purposes of this case, that one or more of the hospital’s nurses were negligent in failing to ensure that [Isaacs’s] decision was not brought to [Pandie’s] attention,” Judge Owen Rogers, who delivered the judgment, held.

The court found Samela had not properly evaluated the conflicting evidence and had accepted Isaacs’s version whereas both sides’ evidence was problematic. “I do not believe that a careful consideration of the record justifies a conclusion . . . that [Isaacs] was a palpably credible witness while [Pandie] was not,” the court held. It also made reference to Samela’s remarks about Pandie being an “outright liar”. “To describe him as an ‘outright liar’ is obviously not in keeping with the findings in this court’s judgment,’’ Judge André Blignaut said.