Medical doctors and other healthcare professionals by virtue of their calling take the responsibility to ensure that patients under their care are treated to become safe and healthy, but sometimes the unexpected happens due to one technical error or the other, exposing them to risks of litigations.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), annually, 134 million adverse events occur in hospitals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) due to unsafe care, resulting in 2.6 million deaths.
Though the issue of litigation and demand for compensation over death or disability of loved once as result of medical officers error are often neglected here in this part of the world, but a lot of awareness are coming up particularly with exposures of Covid-19 pandemic, and so professionals could be facing more than they anticipate.
This therefore brings to more relevance the importance of having Professional Indemnity Insurance by healthcare professionals or hospitals for their staff.
It is an insurance product made compulsory under the law in Nigeria to protect medical professionals in the event of damage, resulting from their negligence or carelessness while trying to discharge their duties.
In Nigeria, Section 45 of the National Health Insurance Scheme Act 1999 requires every healthcare professional to have insurance that will protect their patients in case of accidents or fatalities (death) resulting from professional negligence.
This type of insurance provides compensation to patients and their dependants in the event of involuntary murder, disability, shock and injury suffered by patients as a result of the negligence of Health Care Providers.
The penalty for non-compliance with this law as provided in the NHIS scheme is a possible revocation of license by the National Health Insurance Council, a record of conviction, and sealing-off of the premises.
Professional Indemnity Insurance protects you from claims if your client holds you responsible for errors, or the failure of your work to perform as promised in your contract.
This insurance policy aims to shield the professional’s assets in the event of a claim therefore ensuring that he/she is able to carry on their business
According to the WHO, safety of patients during the provision of health services that are safe and of high quality is a prerequisite for strengthening health care systems and making progress towards effective universal health coverage (UHC) under Sustainable Development Goal.
With the exposure of the Nigerian healthcare sector and its inadequacies following the Covid-19 pandemic, and the growing effort by government to resuscitate the sector, it is important that professionals are compelled to have adequate insurance to protect their profession.
While awareness and the advancement in telemedicine are widening the scope of right awareness, citizens will no longer be crowded in ignorance about what is proper and right in healthcare needs.
This implies that litigation and call for compensation for loss or damages due to professional carelessness or negligence in medicine and healthcare will begin to assume greater dimensions going into the future.
The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), the body responsible for regulation of insurance in Nigeria has continued to push for implementation of professional indemnity insurance under the Market Development and Restructuring Initiative (MDRI) launched in 2011 and re-launched in 2017.
Part of the effort was to partner with NHIS, and collectively work out an agreeable premium that medical practioners could pay to have insurance protection for their professional practice.
According to WHO, many medical practices and risks associated with health care are emerging as major challenges for patient safety and contribute significantly to the burden of harm due to unsafe care.
Amongst them are – medication errors, health care-associated infections; unsafe surgical care procedures; unsafe injections practices in health care settings; diagnostic errors; unsafe transfusion practices; radiation errors and venous thrombosis called blood clothing.
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