Assessing the Impact of Medical Negligence and Access to Justice in Uganda
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Date
2025-05-27
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Uganda Christian Univesity
Abstract
Medical negligence is an unbearable worry and significant concern in the healthcare system filled in the hearts and minds of patients regardless of one’s financial status which results into harm to patients’ lives causing both psychological and physical disabilities. This leads to increased healthcare costs to rectify the errors or omissions and erodes trust in the healthcare system. Practicing safe and up to the required standard methods of medication and treatment is expected to be the back bone of the health worker’s ethical and professional standards. Health workers tend to neglect their sworn values, ethics and standards of practices either intentionally or negligently which puts the health of patients in jeopardy. These can be seen through wrongful acts like misdiagnosis, wrong prescriptions of medicines, improper surgeries carried out, and so many other acts or omissions where they deliberately refuse or fail to do what is required of them. The victims to such actions remain with just one alternative, which is to seek for justice from the institutional frame works that government the health profession in Uganda. The question then remains, whether this justice is attained and can fully fill up and put together the broken pieces.
The objective of this study was to assess the impact of medical negligence and access to justice in Uganda. The study sought to discuss the legal frame work surrounding medical negligence in Uganda by analyzing and assessing how best the legal and institutional frame work has played a role in ensuring that the victims to medical negligence access the justice they deserve and addressing the matter.