Fault and Medical Emergencies

Abstract

In medicine, an emergency is a situation in which a diagnosis and treatment must be carried out very quickly. But what about in law? The doctrine attaches the following definition to it: a situation likely to cause harm due to delay. Beyond that, it is a functional notion in the sense that it is the legal effects it entails that define it. The interest of this study is to understand the urgency in health law by examining its influence on the responsibility of the doctor in the emergency department. More than two hundred court decisions have been analyzed for this purpose; it appears that it creates an obligation for the doctor to act quickly and constitutes an exception to the respect of the patient's rights. What impact does this legal standard have, the style on the conditions for invoking the liability of the healthcare professional in a service where time is, by hypothesis, a factor of vulnerability? We find two systems of responsibility with different purposes: Restorative responsibility aims to repair the damage caused to patients, whereas punitive responsibility sanctions the behavior of doctors constituting an offense provided for by criminal law. All of this presents a situation where the patient's life is in imminent danger and where they risk dying due to a lack of rapid and appropriate care. To address this, it is necessary to coordinate the management of life-threatening emergencies within healthcare facilities, develop the capacity of healthcare professionals to identify a life-threatening emergency, know the first steps and the procedure to initiate care, and limit the occurrence of emergency situations. For this, it is necessary to establish an organization to ensure the management of vital emergencies and to conduct training and certification for healthcare professionals.