In Nigeria, there is an alarming increase of medical negligence, and this is due to lack of available work force and infrastructure in the health sector. Most Nigerians have experienced a terrible state of care by health care providers. These health care providers are generally called medical practitioners and they are qualified and appropriately registered to practice. Currently, there are many reports of harms experienced by patients because of the negligent act of the medical practitioners. An empirical work by a researcher shows that 61.69% of Nigerian patients feel that medical practitioners in Nigeria are arrogant and careless about their conditions and plights. In addition, 33.3% of Nigerian patients indicated that their doctors’ treatment had caused them extra injury beyond the ones that took them to the hospital. In spite of this large number of victims, the number of cases recorded or filed, as lawsuits are low. The reasons for low-level of claims include a cultural notion of adverse medical events, poverty, illiteracy, limited option of treatment, reluctant to seek redress against the medical practitioner and most of all ignorance. Against this background, patients must be properly informed of their rights to claim and the possibility of instituting a suit against negligent health providers. Certainly, the quality of care may improve in Nigeria if health care providers are liable for their careless acts.
Medical negligence constitutes an act or omission by a medical practitioner, which falls below the accepted standard of care resulting to injury or death of the patient. Medical negligence is hinged on the tortious principle of negligence as propounded by Lord Atkin in the case of Donoghue V. Stevenson (1932) AC 562. The above case established a general duty to take reasonable care to avoid foreseeable injury to another. Therefore, to establish a case of medical negligence, it must be shown that a duty of care was owed; there had been a breach of that duty; and that damage or injury was suffered as a direct result of a breach of the duty owed. In medical negligence and going by the definition above, medical practitioners who undertake the care and treatment of patients owe a duty of care to such patients.