f two doctors were working together, both can be liable for negligent medical treatment where one was in charge and the other was sufficiently involved, the Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled.
The case of Stevenhaagen Estate v. Kingston General Hospital, 2022 ONCA 560 involved a patient with a congenital heart condition who went through an angioplasty procedure at the Toronto General Hospital in 2002. A serious emergency occurred when her aorta ruptured and she started bleeding.
The appellants, an interventional cardiologist and a vascular surgeon, responded to the situation on their own instead consulting the hospital’s cardiovascular surgery service. They inserted a covered stent to partially contain the patient’s bleeding. Still, her condition was precarious.
A cardiovascular surgeon saw the patient several hours later, at which point she was transferred to the operating room. An operation successfully repaired her aorta, but the patient experienced serious injuries – paraplegia, paralysis of the left vocal cord, brain ischemia, left arm pain syndrome, and bladder and bowel dysfunction. She died in 2012.
At trial, the judge found that the need for cardiovascular surgery was both inevitable and imminent and that the appellants were liable for the patient’s injuries. These injuries made the deceased spend her last decade as an invalid, the judge said. Both the interventional cardiologist and the vascular surgeon appealed.