Often, when our state is compared with any other country, one of the first arguments that comes to mind is that Russia has free education and medicine. At the same time, ask any Russian person what free medicine is, and in most cases the answer will be: “it’s bad medicine.”
Like any other public opinion, this could not arise without compelling reasons, and we will discuss one of them in this article. More precisely, what is medical negligence, and what to do if you are unlucky enough to encounter it one day.
Definition of negligence - Article 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
Why does a patient who is faced with poor medical care, illiteracy of a doctor, or simply his careless attitude towards the health of his sick ward need to familiarize himself with Article 293?
The fact is that any actions of a doctor that entailed any damage to the patient’s health, with the exception of when the doctor intentionally brought the person to death (the emphasis here is on the word “intentionally”), is automatically designated in further proceedings as medical negligence , article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation No. 293 will be the first under which such a case will be carried out.
So, the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation defines medical negligence as skimping or poor performance of their work duties, which resulted in damage to the health of an innocent person.
Actually, Article 293 includes not only medical negligence, but also any other that entails harm to another person due to the failure of an official.
Characteristic
Any doctor, while at his workplace, is an official and for all his actions or inactions bears a certain responsibility, including criminal liability. Based on the topic of this article, medical negligence can manifest itself as incorrect decisions that can harm the well-being and health of the patient, as well as inaction, which is dangerous to the same extent, and sometimes even more significantly. In this regard, the crime can be characterized by the following three factors:
- Objectivity. Failure to fulfill direct official duties by a doctor due to unwillingness or negligent attitude to the situation led directly to a deterioration in the patient’s health. This factor must necessarily be accompanied by an established cause-and-effect relationship.
- Subjectivity. It is defined by specifying a specific employee whose actions led to similar results.
- Damage. It manifests itself in recording the consequences that occurred as a result of the occurrence of the above factors.
If these described factors coincide and lead to certain negative consequences for the victim, criminal liability may arise in accordance with Article 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Negligence of doctors
Before we figure out where you can send your complaint about a doctor’s poor performance, let’s talk directly about medical negligence itself, examples of which can be different. Let us give the most basic sad precedents.
- Poor or incomplete treatment. There are cases when, due to a lack of beds in the hospital, the patient was discharged prematurely without further treatment, which is why the person’s well-being often worsened.
- Incorrect diagnosis and, as a result, treatment. Of course, there are illiterate specialists in any field, but the worst thing is if such a person is entrusted with taking care of your health. A good doctor, having doubts about the cause of the patient’s poor health, will prescribe additional tests or procedures to get to the bottom of the cause of the disease. A bad doctor is an overly self-confident doctor.
- Inadequate treatment. Of course, if your treatment takes place in a paid clinic, then the risk of incomplete treatment almost disappears. No one claims that in a paid hospital there is no risk of getting an illiterate specialist, but all procedures in such institutions are paid, so they will definitely prescribe all the necessary procedures for you, sometimes including a couple of extra ones on the list, “just in case.”
- An indifferent attitude towards the patient or, even worse, a biased attitude . Many of us have often heard this formulation: “a doctor is a sexless being.” It means that a doctor should treat a person, regardless of his own views and preferences. Someone acts quite the opposite, deliberately aggravating the patient’s condition due to the conflict that has arisen between them, and someone acts according to this concept even too zealously: they are indifferent to any complaints of their patient due to laziness or for some other reason.
- Death. Yes, we all understand that the death of a patient is not always the fault of the doctor, because there are cases where medicine was almost powerless to do anything, but we also understand that the cause of death can be the negligence of medical workers. Up to an incorrectly inserted catheter.
There are, of course, more examples than were mentioned, and only the most basic and common ones were named. Let's now discuss how to hold a doctor liable for negligence and what authorities to contact.
What actions must be taken to prove the doctor’s guilt?
In the event of death or serious harm to the health of patients, appropriate investigations are carried out, which do not require any initiative on the part of relatives of the patient or deceased.
However, if there are grounds to believe that the reasons for the unfavorable outcome have not been sufficiently established by doctors and the relevant commission, then this requires additional investigation.
Where to file a complaint
The most effective way to initiate an investigation, the results of which will result in a decision to initiate a criminal case or refuse to do so, is to send a complaint to the prosecutor's office.
How to write an application correctly
The complaint must be made in writing. There are no established requirements for its content, however, for its speedy and comprehensive consideration, it is necessary to indicate the following information:
- name of the authority to which the document is sent;
- information about the applicant;
- a statement of the essence of the complaint, which includes a description of the patient’s health status, the grounds for medical intervention, and the actions taken by the attending physician;
- list of attached documents.
At the end of the document the signature of the applicant and the date of the complaint are affixed.
What documents should I attach?
The complaint should include the victim's medical records, including:
- outpatient card;
- results of analyzes and other studies;
- epicrises.
Attention! It should be noted that a significant part of the medical documentation is not given to the victim or his representative. In this regard, it must be taken into account that prosecutors, as part of the inspection, have the right to independently request the necessary documents from a health care institution.
Review period
In accordance with the law, prosecutors are required to consider a citizen’s appeal in the form of a complaint within 30 days.
The outcome of the proceedings for the doctor
If during the inspection the negligence of a medical worker is suspected, then a criminal case will be initiated against him.
So, the punishment under Part 2 of Art. 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for up to 5 years of imprisonment with a ban on professional activities for a certain period. According to Part 3 of Art. 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the punishment is more severe - up to 7 years in prison.
Where to contact
First, you should contact a third-party specialist who will document that the damage to your health was the result of the doctor’s negligence.
Not all citizens are knowledgeable in the intricacies of medical care and cannot draw a connection between the improper work of a doctor and the deterioration of their own health, so another doctor from another institution will perfectly help this situation. It is better not to address this question to employees of the same organization where you received treatment.
Once the fact of negligence has been established, a whole road of various authorities opens before you to which you can complain.
Chief physician
Of course, we need to start with the hospital management.
Contact the head physician with a complaint and provide evidence. You can demand either repeated, high-quality treatment, or compensation for damage to health that was caused.
In this case, everything depends on the head physician; he can either satisfy your request, refuse it or simply ignore it.
Ministry of Health and Prosecutor's Office
If you were refused by the hospital , the next step would be to contact the Ministry of Health. This is the highest level in the medical hierarchy, and you can safely go there, indicating in your application not only the fact of poor medical care, but also the indifference of management.
If the ministry employees did not hear you, which, unfortunately, happens, contact the prosecutor's office. She directly controls the work of all government agencies, and it is she who will deal with legal proceedings related to them. He will order an examination in the future (we will talk about it a little later) and open a criminal case.
Insurance and police
You can also contact an insurance company, even if you only have compulsory insurance. Unfortunately, according to statistics, not all insurers undertake to resolve such issues, although this is part of their obligations to policyholders. You should carefully study the various reviews of people who contacted your insurance company in a similar matter and how it turned out.
It is worth clarifying about the police, who do not deal with complaints of medical negligence. You should contact the police only if you are sure that the doctor caused harm to your health intentionally, and not because of laziness, illiteracy or indifference.
Court
So, if all of the above authorities turned a deaf ear to your complaints, all you have to do is sue the doctor for negligence. We didn’t talk about it earlier only because the court is a last resort, and it will only consider your complaint if you have already contacted the hospital management and the prosecutor’s office, but were not satisfied with the result.
Judicial settlement of the issue
You can submit an application to the judicial authorities only after attempts have been made to resolve the situation peacefully. To do this, you will need to collect all the papers that can confirm the guilt of the doctors, as well as factors that can confirm that the deterioration in health occurred due to the inaction or failure to fulfill the professional duties of the doctors. The list of documentation should also include an expert opinion from an independent specialist on the consequences.
At the time of filing a court application, it is important for the victim to pay the state fee. To draw up a correct application, you must use a ready-made sample, which can be found at a judicial institution. It is important to remember that you should go to court located at the location of the medical treatment facility.
Liability and consequences of medical negligence
What is the criminal liability of a doctor? If it was nevertheless proven, then the specialist will face the following penalties, dictated by Article 239:
- A fine of up to 120 thousand rubles, arrest for up to 3 months and compulsory or corrective labor for up to 1 year - if the damage was minor.
- Forced labor for up to 5 years, a ban on further medical practice for up to 3 years, or imprisonment for up to 7 years, if the consequence of the specialist’s negligence was the death of the patient or serious harm was caused to him.
Read what to do if your child is beaten at school.
And here’s where to complain if a husband beats his wife.
Punishment
The punishment is imposed on health workers usually as a qualified offense in accordance with Part 2.
And it provides for imprisonment of up to 5 years.
Therefore, this punishment is imposed in case of violation of professional responsibility (based on an analysis of job descriptions).
In other cases, the practice is to impute unintentional bodily harm or something else.
Accordingly, the degree of punishment in such cases is much lighter.
Line of defense - how to prove the absence of a crime
We have looked at how to punish a doctor for negligence, but have not yet discussed the possibility of legally avoiding punishment.
During the investigation, the investigator who directly conducts the case pays attention to three points that must be present in order for negligence to be proven.
- First, the connection between the injury caused and negligence (which implies the indifference or laziness of the specialist) must be discovered.
- Secondly, the deterioration of a person’s health must be a direct consequence of the prescribed treatment, and not other, third-party factors.
- Thirdly, there must be one specific employee whose actions resulted in a deterioration in the patient’s well-being or death.
All these points confirm the employee’s negligence, and if even one is excluded from the case, the employee’s guilt will not be proven. That is why in this matter you should cooperate with a competent lawyer who will help you prove that you are right, since it will be unlikely to do this on your own.
Going to court
If you want to omit all of the above points and simply go to court to recover compensation from a medical worker, then, alas, you will not be able to do this. An appeal to the court can be sent only after all the previous steps have already been completed, that is, in a situation where the injured person wrote a statement to the chief doctor, the employees responsible for the investigation in the relevant ministry, Roszdravnadzor and the prosecutor's office. And only in cases where the latter refused to conduct an investigation and supervisory inspection, or if you want to appeal the result of the prosecutor’s investigation, is it possible to appeal to the justice authorities. In other cases, the case will not be accepted by the court due to the lack of evidence.
