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- Published on: 15 January 2019
- Published on: 15 January 2019Bawa-Garba - no-one wins in this scenario
Nathan Hodson is quite correct in his conclusions that the rulings in the awful situation of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba are not good news for doctors, but I am not convinced that the analysis starts in the right place. Most of the focus in the article (and almost everywhere else) is on what the GMC has done following the decision of the MPTS not to strike Dr B-G off the register, and, in general, the opinion is that the body shoud not have done what it did. In my opinion, this is the wrong place to start - questions should be asked about how a relatively routine error led to a conviction at all.
As a lecturer in medical law and ethics, I find it strange in the extreme that a) the police felt that they should forward this to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for prosecution, b) that the CPS went forward with the prosecution, and c) that the jury found Dr B-G guilty given the evidence available. Whilst the final part will remain a complete mystery because the law requires that what happens in the jury room must not be divulged, there is need to examine the decisions that led from a tragic but not remarkable incident in a hospital to a cause-celebre which has ruptured both public and professional trust in the GMC, and the law of gross negligence manslaughter. At the very least, there should be an appeal heard into Dr Bawa-Garba's convictions, but really there needs to a full and frank investigation into how this case ever got through the courtroom door. There was no...
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