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ABSTRACT
Medical professionals are treated as next to God. They provide humanitarian services and give solace to individuals suffering from various diseases and bodily disorders. Due to their great service to humanity since the ancient times, the medical profession has been considered as a noble profession. However, with the passage of time, there has been a change in the doctor-patient relationship. During the last few decades a number of incidents have come to light in which the patients have suffered due to the error and inadvertent conduct of doctors. Due to the increasing conflicts and legal disputes between the doctors and patients, most of the legal systems have developed various rules and principles to deal with such inadvertent behavior of doctors. This has led to the development of a new branch of jurisprudence which is medical negligence.
This research examines the present law and practice in Nigeria in relation to the basic care exhibited by medical practitioners, the perception of patients about such care, the elementary requirements of a doctor-patient relationship, medical negligence litigation and makes proposal for reforms in this wise. Although the level of care is abysmally low leading to high level of malpractice, the level of legal claims is even lower. This inaction is tied to the challenges of prosecuting medical negligence in Nigeria.
Hence, this paper proceeds to draw lessons from other jurisdictions and set out some legal and administrative remedial measures that could be taken to improve the almost non-existent claims against practitioners involved in medical malpractice in Nigeria.
