Clipping of news on Brazilian Culture, Law and Citizenship
05/13/2016
This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.
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Source: STJ
The Fourth Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) determined the severance payment of R$ 100,000 for moral damages the patient who was partially blind after undergoing cataract surgery. The decision was unanimous.
In 2005, the author underwent tests in ophthalmology institute in São Paulo, which showed the presence of cataract in his right eye. After diagnosis, the patient underwent surgery in ophthalmological hospital. The operation was conducted by professionals of the institute responsible for the diagnosis.
In the days following the surgery, the patient felt different pain in the operated eye and, therefore, had to perform two more surgeries. Still, due to an infection, the author was not the vision of the right eye, having also lost the eyeball (one of the parts that make up the ocular system).
Responsibility
In the first instance, the claim for compensation was denied. Based on judicial expertise, the judge understood that health professionals who treated the patient acted appropriately. The magistrate also considered that there were doubts about the place of occurrence of postoperative infection that caused the partial blindness - in the hospital or outside it. The decision of the first degree was maintained by the São Paulo Court of Justice (Id).
In the appeal addressed to the Supreme Court, the patient claimed that was proven in the case of hospital infection and thus would not fit her taste of who was to blame for the infection and the definitive injury. She also said that the hospital and health professionals not warned, even being diabetic, about the risks of failure of the surgical procedure.
Origin of damage
By analyzing the patient's appeal, the ministers decided to reform the trial of second instance. The rapporteur of the case, Minister Marco Buzzi, said that the damage suffered by the patient resulted from hospital infections, which removes the responsibility of the doctors involved in the surgery.
The minister Buzzi stressed that the accountability of hospitals and clinics by infection contracted in their environments for patient is objective, based on the project's risk, not on simply take the blame. Thus, it is possible the responsibility for analysis of legal entities without assessing necessarily the elements related to negligence, malpractice or medical body recklessness.
"Indeed, it is not exclude the hospital's liability for contracted infection per patient based on the absence of fault of the doctors involved agents because these assumptions affects the objective responsibility", said the minister to point out the link between the damage suffered by the patient and services provided by health institutions.
According to the decision of Buzzi minister, as were part of the same chain of service, ophthalmologic institute and the hospital will bear in solidarity with the compensation established by the group.
Source: STJ
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This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.