Malpractice claims in ophthalmology: 10 year review

The literature revealed a limited number of studies related to medical litigation in ophthalmology. The organization whose expert opinion for medical malpractice claims is requested by legal authorities in Turkey is The Supreme Health Council. We aimed to reveal and discuss the profile of medical malpractice claims and liability of clinicians involving ophthalmology cases in adults and children reported to The Supreme Health Council.
We retrospectively reviewed 1531 malpractice claims reported by The Supreme Health Council of Turkey between 1991 and 2000, 59 (%3.85) were related to ophthalmology and 57 cases could be included in the study. The data including patients’ age, sex, diagnoses, malpractice claims of judgment, distribution of ophthalmologic subspecialties, types and results of surgical/medical interventions, expert opinion of claims and the distribution of liability of health workers in these reports were collected.
The mean age was 26.46±20.35 years. Of the cases, 63.6 % were male. Mostly encountered ophthalmologic events resulted to malpractice claims were; cataract surgery ranked the first, having 19 malpractice claims (33.3%) followed by traumatic injuries of eye (15.8%) and erroneous reporting (15.8%). Health personnel were found at fault in 38.6% of the claims. Of the cases, %36.8 was placed in private clinics and private hospitals. Lack of care was mostly observed in state hospitals than private ones and failure to obey the legal procedures were observed mostly in private clinics or private hospitals than state hospitals. Medico legal autopsy was performed on 6 of the cases which resulted death among 8 cases.
These findings would contribute to the data about the profile of medical malpractice claims related to ophthalmology. Revealing the data could be helpful for preventing malpractice claims and faults at similar medical conditions.