Legal Expert Witness

As an expanding and important area of the Centre For Amputees’s ongoing professional services, Marco du Plooy is continuously involved in the legal arena of Expert Witness. Third party- and personal injury attorneys call on specialist “experts” to advise on necessary care for victims of road accidents, medical negligence etc.

In order to estimate possible future treatment and possible future expenses, it is necessary and important to understand ones reasoning and agenda when compiling a medico-legal prosthetic report. Such a report determines in a greater or lesser manner the future treatment and costs involved, to ensure that the claimant is placed in a position he was prior to the incident.

The criterion for prosthetic care is to provide the individual with a prosthetic device that is medically necessary and will enable the patient to achieve Activities of Daily living.

The standard to establish the level of care or technology is to enable the patient to achieve, function, stability and activity that are comparable in function, stability and activity to the pre-injury status. The benchmark of what is appropriate and medically necessary must not be established by historical or pre-existing technology but rather by the function and activity of the missing limb.