Legal expert says malpractice fights tough to win when Canadian hospitals get it wrong [Video]

A legal expert says suing for medical malpractice can come with a long list of challenges.

The comments come after a Nova Scotia woman says she was wrongly told she had terminal breast cancer just weeks after being told she had no traces of the disease.

“It really matters whether or not somebody fell below the standards they were supposed to meet,” said Wayne MacKay from Dalhousie law school.

“You’d have to find out: how does this normally get done? What’s the normal practice? What did they do in this case? Did they fall below what was a reasonable standard? And that’s probably the key thing.”

This week, Gabriella Patey told Global News that Halifax’s IWK Health Centre made several errors when delivering her breast biopsy results.

On May 17, the hospital said her results were all clear. Then two weeks later, she was informed she had advanced-stage breast cancer — giving her about 10 months to live.

But then just days …