Failure to monitor a healthcare establishment
An important obligation of a healthcare establishment is its duty of supervision.
A clinic is required to take the necessary measures to ensure patient safety.
“Whereas, however, by virtue of the contract for hospitalisation and care binding it to its patient, a private healthcare establishment is required, inter alia, to take the necessary measures to ensure the patient’s safety, the requirements relating to this obligation being dependent on the patient’s condition ; that the Court of Appeal, which noted that Brigitte X had been tied to her bed due to the seriousness of her attack and had been left unattended, as no member of the clinic’s staff was on the floor where her room was located, and that only the call of another patient had made it possible to come to her aid, did not therefore draw the legal conclusions from its own findings”.
Cass. civ. 1, 18 July 2000, no. 99-12.135
“Attendu que de ces constatations, les juges du fond ont pu déduire que la clinique avait commis une faute en ne surveillant suffisamment un malade dont l’état, consécutif à l’opération, nécessitait des soins constants et particulièrement vigilants”.
Cass. civ. 1, 5 February 1963, no. 58-10.605
This obligation to supervise is particularly present in the case law on patient falls in private health establishments.
It has been upheld even in the absence of a doctor’s prescription to this effect.
For example, the Court of Cassation ruled that the clinic had failed in its duty to supervise a patient under the terms of the hospital and care contract when, while the patient was still under anaesthetic, it left her unsupervised in a high, narrow bed with no protective railings, from which she fell, causing her to become a quadriplegic (Cass. civ. 1, 6 June 2001, no. 99-17.313).
The DAMY law firm can examine your medical records to determine whether there was a lack of supervision.
Please do not hesitate to contact our secretariat to arrange an appointment.
