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In the UK, the dark saga of a family of violence, health problems and medical secrecy has paved the way for a lawsuit that could irrevocably alter the extent of the obligation to take into Physician's responsibility to the public.
In recent developments, a woman – who can not be identified for legal reasons – has been granted the right to sue her father's doctors, with the trial date set for next November.
But the sad story of the pinch of sickness and death by this unlucky family goes back more than a decade.
In 2007, the woman's father was found guilty of manslaughter with diminished responsibility (due to his mental health condition) after shooting the woman's mother.
Two years after he was convicted of a crime, doctors began to suspect that this man had Huntington's disease – a progressive and fatal brain disorder that causes physical and cognitive impairments, leading to dementia and premature death in most people. develop this disease.
Given that Huntington's disease has a 50% chance of being passed on to offspring, this man's doctors advised him to tell his daughter – the complainant in the case, and to her two sisters – of their possible hereditary condition.
But the man refused, telling doctors that he "feared that his daughters would not be informed of the possibility of an HD [Huntington’s disease] as he felt that they might get angry, kill themselves or have an abortion. "
Respecting his right to confidentiality, the doctors kept his condition secret, even though evidence seemed to indicate that he was not well disposed to understand the seriousness of the decision.
In June 2010, a social worker said: "I do not think that [the father] is able to understand the implications of his illness, the possible speed of its deterioration, or the effects it will have on him and his family ".
At this point, however, his secret had already had one of the desired effects. Two months earlier, in April 2010, the woman in the case had given birth to a baby girl.
Only later did the woman accidentally learn about her father's condition and get tested.
In January 2013, the results came back, diagnosing him with Huntington's disease – a diagnosis that implied that his young girl now had a risk of one in two also developing the disease with age.
"I live every day knowing that my gene is positive," said the woman The temperature in 2015.
"My young child also has a 50% chance of inheriting the disease and will have to live with that inheritance … I would never have inflicted this on him." Day after day, it's she who makes life worth living to be experienced and, at the present time, life is beautiful and we are happy.But the future is a terrifying place. "
In light of her situation, the woman sued the hospital for the purpose of taking care of her father, asserting that she owed him a duty of care and neglected to do so. warn of the health status of his father – while he had expressly wanted to keep his state of health secret. his family.
In 2015, the trial judge struck out the woman's case, alleging that she was not a hospital patient, so doctors were not required to provide care and that doctors were not obliged to disclose this information as this would undermine doctor-patient confidentiality.
Last year, on appeal, the Court of Appeal overturned this decision, ruling that in certain circumstances (where other parties could be harmed by the failure to disclose the medical information of the court). a patient), an obligation of disclosure could possibly exist.
Due to the decision of the Court of Appeal, the case will now be heard within a year and this difficult issue of law, ethics and patients' rights must now be decided.
"It could really change the way we do drugs, because doctors have a duty to share the results of genetic testing with their loved ones and determine if the duty exists in law," said Anna Middleton, researcher on ethics and society. , Wellcome Genome Campus Cambridge. The Guardian.
If such a duty is considered to exist, it also creates new problems – not only by threatening the established principle of patient confidentiality, but by imposing a system whereby people are informed unilaterally that they may have problems. of serious health that they completely ignored (without seeking medical advice themselves).
"These parents might not be happy to be found and receive unwanted information," Middleton said.
"For example, they have a gene that predisposes them to breast cancer.You can not recover this information once you have given it."
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