Doctors and hospitals in Ireland owe you a duty of care. When that duty is breached — through a misdiagnosis, a surgical error, a failure to act on symptoms — and you are harmed as a result, Irish law entitles you to compensation. These cases are complex, but they are winnable.
Medical negligence in Ireland is assessed against the Dunne v. National Maternity Hospital standard — the question is whether the care provided fell below what a reasonably competent medical professional in that field would have provided in similar circumstances.
This means you do not need to show that your doctor made the worst possible decision. You need to show that a responsible body of medical opinion would not have acted as they did. Common examples include missed or delayed diagnosis of cancer or other serious conditions, surgical errors, anaesthetic errors, prescription of incorrect medication or dosage, failure to refer a patient to a specialist, and failures in post-operative care.
In medical negligence cases, the two-year limitation period often runs from the 'date of knowledge' — when you first became aware, or should reasonably have become aware, that the harm you suffered was caused by negligence. If you are uncertain whether your claim is still within time, speak to a solicitor before assuming it is too late.
Catherine had been attending her GP with persistent fatigue and unexplained weight loss for over a year. She was told on multiple occasions that her symptoms were stress-related and that blood tests were normal. She accepted this explanation and tried to manage her lifestyle.
When she finally insisted on a referral to a specialist, a serious diagnosis was made within weeks. Her oncologist later confirmed that had the referral been made twelve months earlier, her prognosis and treatment options would have been significantly better.
Catherine had never considered taking legal action against her GP. She was not an angry person and she understood that medicine is uncertain. But a solicitor who specialised in medical negligence explained that this was not about blame — it was about the fact that a reasonable GP, presented with her symptom pattern, should have referred her much earlier.
The case settled before reaching court.
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