A patient death from a medical error in Finland costs less than $3,000

A Finnish doctor forgot to restart his patient’s pacemaker following a routine check-up and the man later died

“The doctor, who called the oversight an accident, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and breach of duty, and fined 2,120 euros ($2,723).”

A somewhat different take on malpractice overseas.

Comments

Anonymous
FInland has a no-fault malpractice system; patients (or the families of killed patients) recover from a schedult of compensation without having to prove negligence. The criminal fine mentioned in the artible is *not* directly related to the compensation received by injured persons.
It’s unusual for doctors to be criminally charged and fined in the US for careless errors resulting in harm, but it does happen and should probably happen more often.
ZZ
It’s unusual for doctors to be criminally charged and fined in the US for careless errors resulting in harm, but it does happen and should probably happen more often.
That’s about the most stupid thing Ive heard this week. Thanks for making my day. I guess the question is, why even stop there? Doctors are evil, right. What we should really be doing is have them automatically face firing squads for any bad outcome.
That’ll learn em.
Anonymous
Stupid? Why do you think they are more willing to prosecute criminal negligence in Finland. Because they are stupid?
Anonymous
What, you think there aren’t any stupid people in Finland?
Anonymous
I’ve personally never met a stupid Fin, but I confess it was probably pretty stupid to kill a patient by forgetting to restart his pacemaker after the routine exam.
Anonymous
Anonymous:
I hope you are perfect in your job. Whatever it is you do, whether you are a lawyer, a cashier, a judge, a coffeemaker, a garbage man, the next time you make a mistake, imagine you are executed by the jury or go to jail.
Or, pay in the emotional guilt of knowing that you killed someone.
This is the kind of pressure that a doctor faces everyday.
Medicine is a human endeavor. To expect excellence is noble, but to expect perfection, well, is inhumane.
Accidents do happen. Everytime you–yes, you–get on the road, you may kill someone, or you may be killed by someone. Why do people in our society accept that fact much easier than they can accept medical errors? Well, it’s because they themselves are the drivers and pedastrians so they
understand the complexity of the situation. Whereas, in medicine, patients only understand one perspective, theirs.
So people like you think that doctors are evil, stupid, careless, concealing, guilty, and money hungry. They make terrible mistakes, kill people, and then hide it.
In the analogy of the road accidents, because they are inevitable, that’s why there are laws, defensive driving classes, road tests, and accident insurance.
Medicine is no different.
Unless you are willing to accept a risk of mistake, you cannot practice medicine.
I hope you can empathize. To analyze why a mistake happens is noble, and takes a national effort on a very complex system, which will require a lot of money. But to immediately call a doctor whose primarily intention is to help people stupid or irresponsible without understanding human nature, is in itself stupid and irresponsible.
I do think there are too many medical mistakes. But the US is not ready for a no-fault malpractice system because the public is not willing to pay for it.
Anne
Anonymous
Dear Anne,
“But to immediately call a doctor whose primarily intention is to help people stupid or irresponsible without understanding human nature, is in itself stupid and irresponsible.”
Puhleez. Doctor’s primary intention, like everyone else’s, is to make money and get on with their lives. They are not saints and reasonable policy analysis must begin with the assumption that like all of us in a capitalist society, doctors are wealth maximizers.
That being said, the med mal problem is that consumers have very little ability to protect themselves from bad, sloppy doctors. The information is simply not available.
Until information is available and the market can punish bad doctors, lawsuits and yes criminal sanctions must provide the incentives for doctors to act correctly.
Anonymous
Obviously you judge everybody else after your own limits. If you hate and dislike people, It does not mean that everybody else is like you.
s.
Hate and dislike have nothing to do with my statement that doctors in the US aren’t usually criminally charged for negligence resulting in harm or death to patients.
It’s simply true.
Dr. Kevin’s remark’s about a “somewhat different take” on medical malpractice prompted the comparison. I can’t speak for him, but I got the impression he was mainly referring to the size of the fine, not the criminal action. I thought I should point out the fine was independent of compensation available under Finlands no-fault malpractice system.
I certainly do not think that all or most or even a substantial minorty of medical negligence resulting in harm should be handled in criminal court. However, I do think it should probably happen more often.
Even with aggravating factors such as substance abuse or fraud, criminal sanction is rarely pursued.
(Unless, it seems, the death was the result of oxycontin overdose.)
Egregious negligence, such as the case in Finland, would probably be “punished” only with a civil judgement — more likely a settlement with the malpractice carrier.
I suspect that the fact that malpractice takes DIRECTLY from the taxpayers, rather than indirectly raising medical costs as in the states, gives the government an incentive to deal harshly with egregious errors that kill patients.
What would be your test for medical negligence rising to the level of involuntary manslaughter?
I think the situation with the poor Fin dead at 43 qualifies, absent any other aggravating factors.
The news blurbs are skimpy, but I suspect there probably were other aggravating factors tippping the scales toward reckless disreguard for the patient’s life.
Anonymous
I believe Finland has a no-fault malpractice system for med-mal.
Last time I had read about how they do things, doctors in that area of Europe, they actually encourage patients to seek compensation within the system if there’s an error. That is, physician error or “system” error, hospitals, nurses, etc.
As it is government-funded, there is motivation to limit the really huge awards.
I have a hard time understanding the argument about how malpractice in the USA would be somehow less if heatlth care were “free” in some sort of government or single-payer mechanism.
No tort reform contemplated in any state has limited economic damages, as in present or future medical care.
Except government, of course…..government institutions that provide health care have limited even economic damages.
Anonymous
Doctors are evil money grubbers otherwise they would leave healthy functional normal genital tissue alone on the penises of their helpless little patients. If the parents want to mutilate their child the physician should be bound by the hypocratic oath to refuse to do the mutilation and call the authorities to arrest the parents. If a doctor does a circumcision except in the RARE exception when it might be appropriate treatment (flesh eating bacteria on foreskin?)The doctor should loose all acredidation,licencing ,property , money and respect from the community. Genital mutilation is not medical care. If the doctors can remove foreskins because the parents want it and not for treatment of a disease or deformity they should not be doctors. It is a clear case of malpractice to remove a healthy functional part of anothers body. The doctors should be locked up Then they should be used for medical experiments till they die.

A patient death from a medical error in Finland costs less than $3,000

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