Unintentional mistakes are made all the time. And although there is an increasing openness in doctor - patient relationships, it is probably fair to say that the patient is often not even made aware that a mistake has occurred. In most healthcare mistakes, the patient comes to little or no harm. Fortunately this is extremely rare, and new proposals are being considered to further protect patients. But somewhere between inconsequential mistakes and deliberate harm lie incidents where those looking after patients are failing to varying degrees in their duty to do their best.
Mistakes are understandable - from the doctor's point of view.
From the health professional's point of view the reasons why things go wrong are often quite understandable, given that they are humans, after all, and every human makes occasional errors, especially under immense pressure. Of course gross negligence is harder to explain, and quite indefensible. But illness is never totally black and white, never text-book typical. Sometimes important things are hidden, or happen unexpectedly. Maybe there wasn't anything you could have done that would have made any difference in the end, but maybe there was.