Following settlement of a medical negligence action arising from a patient’s stroke while recovering from neurosurgery, the hospital pursued a cross‑claim for contribution under s. 2 of the Negligence Act against a nurse and her staffing agency employer.
The court found that the primary care nurse failed to properly assess neurological deterioration, failed to recognize hemiplegia, inadequately documented patient status, and failed to escalate concerns to obtain timely physician assessment.
The charge nurse also breached the standard of care by failing to properly assess the patient and failing to ensure that physicians were promptly paged and attended.
Applying the “but for” test with a robust and pragmatic approach to causation, the court inferred that earlier diagnosis and treatment of vasospasm would likely have reduced the extent of neurological injury.
Because the respective degrees of fault between the two nurses could not be determined, liability was apportioned equally under the Negligence Act.