13 May 2024
Did the hospital owe a duty of care to the friend of a mentally ill patient? Which case won?
A Victorian man had a long history of chronic paranoid schizophrenia and was being treated for his illness at Echuca in Victoria.
In July 2004, while in NSW with a friend, the man was admitted to a regional hospital and detained as an involuntary patient.
Both the psychiatrist and the medical superintendent who saw the man at the hospital recorded their opinion that the man was a “mentally ill person”.
