Case against surgeons dismissed

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal from a judgment which had failed to find negligence on the part of two surgeons.

The judgment was delivered in a case filed by Frankie and Sonja Zerafa against Olga Avramov, Donald Felice, and the Chief Government Medical Officer.

The Court was told that in June 2002, Mrs Zerafa was admitted to St Luke's Hospital to deliver a baby by caesarian section. She had requested the surgeons to sever her fallopian tubes so that she would not be able to have more children. The surgery was carried out by Senior Rgistrar Olga Avramov who worked under the supervision of consultant surgeon Donald Felice.

However, Mrs Zerafa subsequently discovered that she was pregnant again. The Zerafas claimed that this was traumatic to them and was going to cause them to suffer financial harm. They requested the court to find the defendants negligent in their work and to award them damages.

In January 2006 the First Hall of the Civiil Court dismissed Mr and Mrs Zerafa's action and the couple lodged an appeal to the Court of Appeal composed of Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice Albert J Magri and Mr Justice Tonio Mallia.

The first court had found that a charge of professional negligence against a medical doctor was serious and carried serious consequences to the doctor's professional status and reputation. With the best will in the world, things sometimes went amiss in surgical operations and treatment. A doctor was not to be held negligent simply because something went wrong. A doctor was liable when he fell so much below the standard of a reasonably competent practitioner in his field that his conduct would be deemed inexcusable.

The first court had expressed its sympathy for the Zerafas as they were the one in a million to get pregnant despite a tubal ligation. But this was not the fault of the doctors involved.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal noted that Mrs Zerafa's health had not suffered as a result of the next operation. But Mr and Mrs Zerafa were alleging that the tubal ligation had not been performed properly. The medical evidence heard clearly indicated that Ms Avramov had indeed performed the tubal ligation on Mrs Zerafa, and that the procedure had been performed properly. The fact that Mrs Zerafa had once again got pregnant was not evidence that the operation had not been performed well.

The Court of Appeal therefore dismissed the appeal and confirmed the judgment of the first court in its entirety.