Medical Negligence in the Courtroom: A Critical Examination of the Patient-Centric Approach under the Consumer Protection Law in Nigeria

Abstract

The rights of patients are protected by the Constitution and several statutes. These rights include, among others, the right to quality health care, which involves access to competent, professional, and safe healthcare services. Regrettably, these rights have been breached and victims suffered legal incapacitation which results in the denial of those rights in a court of law. This situation was brought to the fore in the case of Ojo vs Gharoro which despite the damages suffered by the Appellant as a result of a broken surgical needle being forgotten in her abdomen during a surgical operation. Notwithstanding the obvious medical negligence on the part of the medical team, the patient lost the case on the grounds of her inability to prove by expert witness that the medical practitioners were negligent. The law and practice of medical negligence has moved away from what was obtainable in the case of Ojo vs Gharoro. The new approach is to enable patients to access justice through the patient-consumer concept, which has widened the doctrine of standard of care and informed consent. This research will use doctrinal method to analyse both primary and secondary sources of existing legal materials. In x-raying this concept the following questions will be examined, namely: to what extent has the change in the standard of proof in medical negligence impacted on the right of patients to access justice? Put different, to what extent has the incorporation of patients’ rights into the Consumer Protection enactment aid patient’s right to access to justice in Nigeria? Secondly, can the principle of implied consent exempt medical practitioners from liabilities for medical negligence? This article established that Patient safety is recognised globally as a public health challenge. However, in practice, the courts are increasingly reluctant to interfere in clinical matters in order to protect and safeguard the integrity of the medical profession. This article argues that this approached adopted by the courts could have a far reaching effect leading to therapeutic immunity that may be detriment to the law. Consequently, this article recommends the need to strengthen patient care regulation to become “patient-centric” in order to enforce rights-based pursuit involving consumer protection.

Keywords:          Medical Negligence, Implied Consent, Consumer protection, Access to Justice, Rights of Patients, Res Ipsa Loquitur

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/152-03

Publication date: May 28^th 2026