Concourt reserves judgment on boy’s spinal cord injury

SUCCESSFULLY suing the Western Cape Department of Health for failing to speedily conduct a procedure that could have ensured his spinal injuries did not leave him permanently disabled brought some relief for Charles Oppelt. That was three years ago. Yesterday, Oppelt, who was injured during a school rugby match in March 2002, was central to discussions before the Constitutional Court.

The Department of Health appealed successfully in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) against an earlier high court decision.

The key issue to be considered by the highest court in the land is whether the SCA erred in dismissing the high court finding that by operating on Oppelt 13 hours after the accident, health officials had delayed unreasonably, thereby acting negligently and denying him his right to emergency medical help.

In the view of Oppelt’s lawyer, advocate Willie Duminy SC: “The SCA did not approach those matters correctly.”

A speedy operation within four hours could have secured the then 17-year-old’s mobility.

“The fact that there was such a long delay… by the time he was transferred to the spinal unit, it was too late. Failure of the system is failure to treat him when there was an emergency,” Duminy argued.

When a contested scrum collapsed and caused a bifacet dislocation between two of Oppelt’s cervical vertebrae during a rugby game, an ambulance rushed him to the nearby Wesfleur Hospital in Atlantis. He was stabilised and then transferred to Groote Schuur Hospital two hours later.

Duminy argued that an expert he had called during the high court proceedings had said Oppelt could have been saved had he been taken directly to Conradie Hospital, which specialises in spinal cord injury treatment, instead of first going to Groote Schuur, where a doctor assessed him after only two hours.

The delays, he said, made it impossible for Oppelt to receive specialised treatment within four hours.

Responding to Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke’s question about what, in relation to negligence, the importance of four hours was, Duminy said the amount of time emphasised urgency and that it was well known in the Western Cape medical fraternity that orthopaedic surgeon Dennis Newton “disseminated information” that patients with spinal injuries such as Oppelt’s should be referred to Conradie Hospital.

Arguing for the Department of Health, advocate Theoniel Potgieter SC sought to answer Justice Moseneke’s question.

“In Dr Newton’s theory, he (Oppelt) would have had a better chance of recovery if he had been treated with more urgency. This is not correct. Such a vague opinion would, in any event, not be enough to find delictual liability,” said Potgieter.

Newton, he argued, had relied on a sample of 113 rugby injuries he had treated over 12 years, and while nine out of the 14 who had received treatment within four hours had recovered fully, most had different injuries to Oppelt’s.

He said health officials had followed protocol by not transporting Oppelt from the rugby field straight to Conradie.

“Dr Newton testified (in the high court) that for him to have been taken directly to Conradie, it would have required somebody who could have stabilised him at the scene… ambulance personnel had no authority to do so,” he said.

Also, there was no formal protocol within the Department of Health that ambulance workers had to transport patients with Oppelt’s injuries directly to Conradie.

Normal protocol was for patients to be taken to a nearby hospital first to be stabilised.

Judgment was reserved.

If he was treated urgently, he’d have had a better chance