Patient gets okay to sue Zille

Cameron Malcolm was six when he was admitted to the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, in Rondebosch, with Hodgkin's disease in 1993.

While being treated, there was a hepatitis B outbreak at the hospital and he contracted it.

Now, 20 years later, Malcolm, of Franschhoek, Western Cape, is suing the province's premier, Helen Zille, claiming negligence on the part of the doctors all those years ago. But a legal technicality has made Malcolm's quest for justice as bumpy as his road to health.

Last week the Supreme Court of Appeal paved the way for the 26-year-old to take his case to the Cape Town High Court.

According to court papers, the hospital failed "to treat [Malcolm] with that degree of skill and care reasonably expected from a public hospital" and it "failed to provide a contamination-free environment".

Hepatitis B is a potentially deadly virus that attacks the liver.

Malcolm was referred to Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town and was treated for several years.

He still undergoes treatment and is claiming more than R1-million.

Zille's lawyers argue that the period in which he could claim had lapsed.

The Prescription Act allows three years in which to lodge a claim. Because he was a minor, he had to wait until he was 21 to launch proceedings.

However, the age of majority was changed to 18 by the Children's Act, which came into effect in 2007. He made his claim in 2008.

"[Malcolm], at the age of 20 years, attained majority status on commencement of the Children's Act," the court papers read.

Zille's counsel argued that he had a year from the act coming into force to lodge his claim but did not and, the lawyers say, his claim expired.

Judge Willem Louw dismissed Malcolm's claim last year.

But the Supreme Court of Appeal disagreed.

It ruled that, if there is potential disability for claimants in the change in the law, "they are entitled to the benefit of the presumption that the change in law does not apply to their situation".