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I Have Questions about the Medical Care I am Receiving
The health care system is complex, and as a patient it can be difficult to understand what to expect. We all know that there are no guarantees in healthcare. However, even though a good outcome is not guaranteed, there are standards in health care that are to be met. If those standards are not met, that might constitute medical malpractice. If medical malpractice causes a serious life-altering injury, usually the only way an injured patient can obtain fair compensation for those injuries is through a medical malpractice lawsuit. There are also other investigative processes that can provide you with answers if your injuries are not severe or compensation is not the goal.
If you experienced an injury that may be the result of medical negligence and you wonder if your injury could have been avoided or if you are entitled to compensation for your injuries, contact us. Our team of experienced lawyers and medical specialists can review the medical care you received and help answer your questions. We understand that making the first call can be daunting. Rest assured, a consultation with us is confidential and free of charge.
We will provide you with the information and advice you need to make informed decisions about your future and ensure that your rights are protected. Contact Pacific Medical Law Today | Free Consultations
Aside from starting a lawsuit, there are two forms of investigations that can take place related to concerns about patient care in a hospital. One is aimed at addressing concerns the hospital may have about its systems and processes. The other is designed to address a patient’s concerns about the care they received. Although these two forms of investigation have some similarities, there are also important differences. One similarity is that neither of these avenues will provide an injured patient with compensation – only a successful lawsuit can compensate an injured patient for their injuries and losses.
The first form of investigation may be triggered by direct reporting from a health care provider, through an audit, or by a complaint or concern brought forward by a patient or their family. This could happen when a medical treatment or procedure, or lack thereof, results in a poor outcome, or adverse event. These investigations are often referred to as “quality improvement reviews” or “quality of care reviews.”
The purpose of these investigations is to prevent similar injuries or losses from happening to other patients. As indicated above, a hospital investigation will not result in compensation for the losses sustained by the patient or their family. However, hospital investigations are critical to maintaining high standards in patient care. When an adverse event occurs in a clinical setting, the hospital must examine how that adverse event occurred and, if necessary, implement changes to ensure the errors and mistakes that led to the negative outcome do not occur again. Often, a hospital investigation ends in a recommendation for continuing education or improved policies and processes (for more examples see Patient Care Quality Review Board, “2019/2021 Patient Care Quality Review Board Annual Report” (March 2022) at p. 9.)
Patients are not entitled to learn the results of these investigations, even if the investigation was triggered by something that happened to them. Section 51 of the British Columbia Evidence Act prohibits the disclosure of information that is collected as part of hospital investigation. The purpose of this prohibition is to protect efforts made by hospitals to ensure that high standards of patient care and professional competency and ethics are maintained, by ensuring confidentiality for documents and proceedings of committees entrusted with this task. Having said that, if the investigation uncovers new facts relevant to the concerns, they may decide to disclose these facts to the patient. They may also issue an apology to the patient. Through all of this, the patient is not likely to receive the hospital’s opinion about what caused their injury. Courts have upheld the protection afforded to these investigations and have declined to order disclosure when sought in the course of a legal action.
The second form of investigation is specifically initiated by the patient or a patient’s family member. All individuals who receive, or expect but do not receive, health services in a British Columbia hospital are entitled to make a “quality of care complaint.” Families, friends, and legal representatives can make complaints on behalf of others, provided they have the written consent of the patient.
Each of the health authorities in British Columbia — Fraser Health, Interior Health, Island Health, Northern Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, and the Provincial Health Services Authority have a Patient Care Quality Office that investigates quality of care complaints. Complaints must be filed with the health authority’s central Patient Care Quality Office (PCQO). If you are not sure which health authority to contact, you can find out here: Regional Health Authorities
Information about the patient care quality office for each health authority, including contact information for making a complaint can be found here:
- Fraser Health – Patient Care Quality Office
- Interior Health – Patient Care Quality Office
- Island Health – Patient Care Quality Office
- Northern Health – Patient Care Quality Office
- Vancouver Coastal Health – Patient Care Quality Office
- Provincial Health Services Authority – Patient Care Quality Office
The Patient Care Quality Office must acknowledge receipt of a complaint within two business days and investigate your concerns. Within 40 business days you can expect to receive a response from the Patient Care Quality Office that includes any decisions and actions taken as a result of your complaint. This time period may be extended (and often is) with the complainant’s consent.
If a patient is not satisfied with the results of the investigation, it is possible to make a further complaint to the Patient Care Quality Review Board. The Patient Care Quality Review Board can review any concerns still outstanding after the Patient Care Quality Office response, including concerns about the adequacy of the response itself. The Review Board may make recommendations to a health authority or to the Ministry of Health for how to improve the way that services are provided or how concerns from patients are handled.
Information about how to request a review of your complaint from the Patient Care Quality Board, including contact information, can be found here: Patient Care and Quality Review Board – Complaints (patientcarequalityreviewboard.ca)
Even if an investigation shows that medical treatment was provided in a poor or inadequate manner, the hospital will not provide a patient with compensation, although there are rare exceptions when the hospital will either agree to pay for some treatment or provide some compensation. In these circumstances, patients should be aware that any ongoing financial compensation provided may end once the patient’s limitation period within which a legal action must be brought, expires.
Hospital investigations and patient care quality investigations do not determine “negligence” in the legal sense. To find out if compensation is warranted for an injury caused by a healthcare provider, a patient should consult with a lawyer, who will work alongside medical experts to assess whether the healthcare provider or the hospital provided substandard medical care leading to the patient’s injury.
If you experienced an injury that may be the result of negligence during your hospital stay and you wonder if your injury could have been avoided or if you are entitled to compensation for your injuries, contact us. Our team of experienced lawyers and medical specialists can review the medical care you received and help answer your questions. We understand that making the first call can be daunting. Rest assured, a consultation with us is confidential and free of charge.
We will provide you with the information and advice you need to make informed decisions about your future and ensure that your rights are protected. Contact Pacific Medical Law Today | Free Consultations
You might have a concern about care provided by a doctor or other health care professional either within the hospital or outside the hospital, that did not meet your expectations. If it did not result in a serious, life-altering injury that would warrant a lawsuit, but you would still like your concern reviewed, there are avenues open to you.
Every licensed health care professional such as doctors, midwives, nurses, pharmacists, or physiotherapists, is a member of a regulatory body (a College) that has a process for receiving complaints about their registrants and investigating those complaints. Most of these Colleges require that complaints be provided in writing, and they often have a form on their website to guide the complaints process.
Information about the BC College of Physicians and Surgeons can be found here: https://www.cpsbc.ca/public/complaints
Information about the BC College of Nurses and Midwives can be found here: https://www.bccnm.ca/Public/complaints/Pages/make_a_complaint.aspx
The Colleges investigate every complaint received, and will acknowledge the receipt of your written complaint with a letter that explains their investigation process. Generally, your letter of complaint will be submitted to the health care provider. They are required to provide a written response, as well as a copy of your medical records in some cases. You will receive a copy of this response so you can reply to it if you think there are facts missing. An Inquiry Committee will review all of this information and determine if the care provided warrants corrective action. The Committee can take a number of steps such as interviewing the health care professional, providing advice for improving their practice or requiring that they upgrade their education in a particular area. In some circumstances the Committee may extend the investigation to the health care professional’s full practice, especially if similar complaints have been made in the past. In addition, a further inquiry can be started to consider if the health care provider should be suspended from practice for a period of time. Regardless of the recommendations or actions taken by the Committee, the complaint will form a part of the healthcare provider’s record, which is important if other patients submit similar concerns. In this case, your complaint may form part of a pattern of practice which may be dealt with differently by the Committee.
In all of these cases you should receive a report from the College telling you what decisions they made and what recommendations were provided to the health care professional. The College’s mandate is not to provide compensation for any injuries. To find out if compensation is warranted for an injury caused by a healthcare provider, a patient should consult with a lawyer, who will work alongside experts to assess whether the healthcare provider provided substandard health care leading to the patient’s injury.
If you experienced an injury that may be the result of medical negligence and you wonder if your injury could have been avoided or if you are entitled to compensation for your injuries, contact us. Our team of experienced lawyers and medical specialists can review the medical care you received and help answer your questions. We understand that making the first call can be daunting. Rest assured, a consultation with us is confidential and free of charge.
We will provide you with the information and advice you need to make informed decisions about your future and ensure that your rights are protected. Contact Pacific Medical Law Today | Free Consultations
One of the primary goals of the healthcare system is to provide patients with accurate and prompt medical diagnoses and treatment. Delays in diagnosis and treatment can have serious consequences on a patient’s health and wellbeing, including their recovery time, the progression of their illness, the severity of their condition, their prognosis and their life expectancy. If a doctor’s delayed diagnosis resulted in a negative clinical outcome, the justice system may award compensation to the patient or the patient’s family.
Physicians have an obligation to diagnose their patients in a timely manner. Physicians are not expected to be right every time, but they must use care, skill, and judgment in making a diagnosis.
When trying to determine what is causing a patient’s symptoms, doctors are expected to generate a differential diagnosis. This involves making a list of all the possible explanations for the patient’s symptoms; evaluating all the facts available to the doctor, including the patient’s history, medical examinations, medical tests, and the opinions of other health care practitioners; and providing a diagnosis based on what is most likely while giving priority to ruling in or ruling out the diagnosis with the most negative or serious outcome. A doctor must consider every reasonable alternative before diagnosing their patient.
Even if there was a delay in arriving at the correct diagnosis, the patient will only receive compensation if they can establish that their clinical outcome would likely have been different if they had been properly diagnosed in a timely manner. In other words, the patient must establish that they are worse off because of the doctor’s delayed diagnosis.
A patient who believes they have suffered injury or illnesss due to a delay in receiving a correct diagnosis should consult a lawyer. The patient’s lawyer will discuss the patient’s experience with medical experts, who will generate their own differential diagnosis and identify whether or not the patient’s doctor exercised appropriate care, skill, and judgment in diagnosing the patient. The patient’s lawyer will also work with medical experts to determine whether a correct and timely diagnosis would likely have resulted in a better clinical outcome.
If a physician is unable to diagnose their patient’s condition, or the required treatment is beyond their competence or experience, they are required to refer the patient to a specialist in a timely manner. The duty to refer a patient to a specialist is part of the duty to diagnose.
In certain situations, a physician may be required by professional guidelines or best practices to refer a patient to a specialist. A family doctor, for example, is often required to consult with or refer a patient to an obstetrician or a perinatologist if the patient is experiencing a high-risk pregnancy. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia has a professional guideline on the Referral-Consultation Process: Referral-Consultation-Process.
Shared decision-making is a process that underpins Canada’s healthcare system. It is premised on the idea that patients are the experts of their own life and circumstances and are entitled to make choices that affect their health and wellbeing. Doctors must engage in shared decision-making by explaining the patient’s right to choose their own treatment; describing treatment options; and helping patients and their families explore alternatives and make decisions.
When a patient and their doctor do not agree on the right approach to their care, the patient is entitled to consider other options, including obtaining a second opinion or a referral to another health care provider.
If you experienced an injury that may be the result of a delay in diagnosis or referral and you wonder if your injury could have been avoided or if you are entitled to compensation for your injuries, contact us. Our team of experienced lawyers and medical specialists can review the medical care you received and help answer your questions. We understand that making the first call can be daunting Rest assured, a consultation with us is confidential and free of charge.
We will provide you with the information and advice you need to make informed decisions about your future and ensure that your rights are protected. Contact Pacific Medical Law Today | Free Consultations
Most people have heard of the term “informed consent.” We often hear from people who had a poor health care outcome and feel they were not given enough information about the risks of their procedure ahead of time, or the alternative treatments or procedures available. This is a “lack of informed consent” complaint.
You may have signed a consent form before a procedure. Signing a consent form does not mean you are prohibited from starting a lawsuit if medical negligence has caused you harm. In other words, it does not constitute a waiver of liability.
Signing a consent form is also not the same thing as informed consent and does not mean that you were provided with the information you needed to provide consent for the proposed medical care or treatment. Consent forms are often general in nature and warn about things like the possibility of infection, blood loss, delayed healing of a surgical incision and the risks of anaesthesia. These forms do not typically provide the specific information you need to know to make an informed decision about a treatment or procedure and do not describe alternative medical treatment or procedures. Only individualized advice and the opportunity for you to ask specific questions can provide that level of information required for your consent to be considered informed consent.
In British Columbia, the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act describes the necessary elements of informed consent as follows:
6 An adult consents to health care if
- (a) the consent relates to the proposed health care,
- (b) the consent is given voluntarily,
- (c) the consent is not obtained by fraud or misrepresentation,
- (d) the adult is capable of making a decision about whether to give or refuse consent to the proposed health care,
- (e) the health care provider gives the adult the information a reasonable person would require to understand the proposed health care and to make a decision, including information about
- (i) the condition for which the health care is proposed,
- (ii) the nature of the proposed health care,
- (iii) the risks and benefits of the proposed health care that a reasonable person would expect to be told about, and
- (iv) alternative courses of health care, and
- (f) the adult has an opportunity to ask questions and receive answers about the proposed health care.
If your healthcare provider fails to describe a certain risk associated with the proposed medical care or treatment, or fails to tell you about alternative treatments available, and you suffer injury from this medical care or treatment, you may have a claim based in lack of informed consent and may be entitled to compensation. This applies even if the medical care or treatment was performed properly and in accordance with the standard of care. Our team of experienced lawyers and medical specialists can review the medical care you received and help answer your questions. We understand that making the first call can be daunting. Rest assured, a consultation with us is confidential and free of charge. We will provide you with the information and advice you need to make informed decisions about your future and ensure that your rights are protected. Contact Pacific Medical Law Today | Free Consultations