Hi prospective parents,
I will try to answer the mystery as to why so many Obstetricians have bowed out of the labour ward arena.
Well, this is quite a conundrum regarding our Medical Protection Society's indemnity insurance. I understand it all boils down to costs and profits for the "insurance" company.
Before 2015, our medicolegal coverage (ie. against law suits) were on an occurence base. This means that if we bought the MPS insurance and a "malpractice" incident occurred, the doctor is covered for life. For example, if Doctor X delivered a baby on Dec 31st, 2014 and that baby suffered mild hypoxic damage to the brain but he or his parents only took out legal action against the doctor 20 years later, that doctor who has likely retired by then, will still be indemnified (covered from the old insurance policy) against this occurence which happened 2 decades before. For this, the doctors were blessed with a security which is lifelong as long as they bought medical insurance and was covered during the incident when they were still actively practicing Obstetrics. This means that after they retire, they need not continue to purchase malpractice insurance.
Suddenly this bliss went "poof" this year with the announcement of a "Claim" based insurance coverage by MPS (you can look up their website). Instead of a lifetime coverage, this policy only covers the doctor as long as he was insured during the incident (same as before) AND also up to the time he receives the lawyer's suit. That means that even after the doctor retires s/he needs to continue to purchase very expensive yearly medicolegal insurance for the rest of their lives lest an unsuspecting baby they delivered 20 years ago decides to challenge them in court when the latter have grown to adulthood. As a matter of fact, such as case recently occured against a female obstetrcian.
I hope that made sense to all of you.
Stephen Yong, FRCOG
