Three reasons I couldn’t sue the hospital (and why that’s a problem)

After my dad died following an unwitnessed fall in a Brisbane private hospital, I did what most people would do — I asked lots of questions.

And when those questions were met with silence, I turned to lawyers. Not because I was looking for a payout — but because I wanted accountability. I wanted to make sure what happened to him didn’t happen to someone else’s family.

(And honestly — no daughter should have to comb through hundreds of pages of her father’s medical records just to find the holes in a system that’s meant to protect him.)

If legal action could have forced reform or helped fund a non-profit in his name to support nurses and drive change, I was ready to explore it.

When justice depends on technicalities, not truth.

But here’s what I learnt: medical negligence claims in Queensland are extremely difficult to pursue, especially in situations involving elderly patients, terminal illness, and complex timelines like my dad’s.

To succeed, you must legally prove all three of the following elements:

1. Duty of Care

This one is generally assumed. The hospital had a duty to provide reasonable care. That’s not the issue.

2. Breach of Duty

You must prove that the hospital breached that duty by failing to provide care that met a reasonable professional standard. In my dad’s case — with limited staff, a bed sensor that failed, and no one attending him for hours after a fall — I thought this would be clear.

But in legal terms, if that level of care is consistent with what happens at similar hospitals — even if it's dangerously inadequate — it can still be deemed reasonable.

In other words:

Not safe. Not ethical.

Just standard.

And here's the deeper issue — if multiple hospitals are owned and operated under the same private network, of course they'll function similarly. That doesn’t make them right. It just makes them legally protected.

3. Causation and Damages

This is where most cases fall apart — and mine did too.

To succeed, I would need to prove that:

• The hospital’s breach of duty caused or materially contributed to my dad’s death

• And that I, as a surviving family member, suffered a recognised psychiatric injury as a result — one that caused loss and could have been avoided both now and into the future

In my dad’s case, the fall led to an unsurvivable brain injury. But because he was retired, elderly and had MND (motor neuron disease), it could be argued that his condition was already declining — and that the outcome would have occurred eventually, regardless.

As for me? I was devastated, yes. But I didn’t require medication. I didn’t take time off work. I didn’t receive a diagnosis of depression or PTSD. In the eyes of the law, my grief wasn’t legally compensable.

If any one of these elements is missing — breach, causation, or legally recognised damages — the case fails. No matter how clear it feels morally.

So what now?

It turns out that in Australia, you can lose someone you love in a system failure — and still have no case.

Because the system doesn’t ask: Was this right?

It asks: Can you prove it was legally wrong — and that you were damaged enough to justify the cost of suing?

I wasn’t. And so, legally, nothing happened.

But morally? Ethically? Emotionally? Everything changed.

What I walked away with wasn’t compensation — it was clarity.

The system is designed to protect itself, not families.

It’s structured around risk, liability, and process — not humanity.

And if that’s the case, then real change won’t come from courtrooms.

It will come from the people who refuse to play by broken rules — and choose to build something better instead.

I may not have had a legal case.

But I still have a voice.

I still have a purpose.

And that’s where the work begins.

B x

Just a note: Everything I’ve shared here is based on my personal experience and views. I’m not naming names or pointing fingers — just being honest about what I saw and felt. It’s not about blame. It’s about trying to do better. This is shared in the hope of encouraging conversation, not conflict.