The matter before him was a claim by the mother of a now seven-year-old boy, who was starved of oxygen during birth, leaving him mentally and physically disabled.Just before the trial to determine what the department must pay, it filed a notice to amend its papers and raised the “public health-care defence”, saying the medical services and supplies the child needs are available in the public health-care sector at no cost or a lesser cost than in the private sector, and at an equal standard.
This had a huge affect on others reliant on the public health-care system, he said. The department wished to create a dispensation that allows it to provide appropriate and reasonable compensation and redress to the child, while ensuring that its resources are not drained and its budget “eaten away” by such claims.
The judge said while the Constitutional Court had ruled that the defence may be raised “if grounded on stated evidence”, the mom contends that in her matter, it had no prospects of success.