Abstract:
Medical practitioners hold enormous power: they literally hold our lives in their hands.
As such, the profession is revered and respected, and rightly so. Historically, however, this
has led to doctors’ positions, decisions and actions effectively being unquestioned. This
cannot be right. Medical error is unavoidable, and victims who have been wronged need a
remedy. Currently, when faced with issues of medical liability for negligence, most countries
provide different avenues for redress, including internal disciplinary procedures, claims in
medical negligence and prosecutions for criminal offences. This paper will focus on the
tort of medical negligence and, in particular, its development in Kuwaiti Law, as a recent
attempt by Kuwaiti authorities to reform this area of law. Special focus will be given to the
need to more accurately defne ‘medical error’ and to establish a workable and fair balance
between the rights of victims of malpractice and the rights of doctors to do their best to
promote patient wellbeing without living in fear of being sued, in comparison with United
kingdom law. This is also a topic that is currently under legal review in many other Middle
Eastern countries, with the recently passed medical laws of the UAE presenting a particularly
interesting comparison.
