Lanzarote joins the list of islands affected by medical negligence recognized judicially in the Canary Islands. The Canary Health Service (SCS) has accumulated almost 1.3 million euros in compensation payments for nine medical negligence cases on different islands in the months of 2025, which have been recognized by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC).
Thus, at the end of January, a resident of Lanzarote was confirmed to be entitled to collect 65,000 euros from the SCS and a mutual insurance company for a work-related fall in June 2018, as a result of which he suffered a fracture in his left hip that was not detected until 14 days later.
During that time, it was not considered necessary to carry out any surgical intervention, and when they were forced to do so, there were no places available on the island, so they tried to have him operated on in Gran Canaria, but for unknown reasons, it was not done either.
After a discussion between the insurer and the SCS, a first instance ruling and then the TSJC considered that both should jointly face the health expenses and now the compensation.
Medical negligence in the Canary Islands: Serious cases and millionaire convictions
Around that time, the SCS was also ordered to pay 352,479 euros to a woman for the death of her twins due to malpractice in the pregnancy, which was high risk, as the necessary security measures had not been guaranteed, which caused an infection and the fatal outcome.
The TSJC also recognized in January the right of a man to receive compensation that has not been specified for the delay in making an adequate diagnosis, which led to him losing his right testicle.
Subsequently, the courts ruled in favor of a resident of Fuerteventura in her right to receive 200,000 euros after she went to a health center on the island on March 24, 2020, feeling that she was losing strength on the left side of her body, especially in her extremities.
From here she was referred to the Insular Hospital where the traumatologist who attended her diagnosed her with damage to the peripheral nerves of the brain and spinal cord, and then discharged her.
The next day the loss of strength was complete, she was treated again at the Insular Hospital, where tests were performed and a lesion in the brain with bleeding was detected, so she was urgently transferred to the Hospital of Gran Canaria.
The negligence would have occurred at the time she was treated for the first time in the Hospital by not having made an adequate diagnosis.
The TSJC also ratified another ruling that set at 6,000 euros the payment to a patient for malpractice for not having been properly informed of the urological intervention to which he was going to be subjected, not having carried out the necessary tests or signing the consent.
The Advisory Council came to estimate the compensation at 12,000 euros, which the Court and the TSJC reduced by half.
Also, a resident of the south of Gran Canaria, with a terminal illness and classified as A. A., or what is the same, that he should remain accompanied at all times, was discharged from the Insular Hospital of Gran Canaria, from where he left alone and two and a half years later is still missing.
The courts recognized the relatives' right to receive compensation of 60,000 euros.
Another 130,000 euros will be collected by a woman from Gran Canaria for "deficient medical care", of which the SCS had agreed to pay 122,000, but in this case the TSJC did not even admit the appeal filed by the Canarian Government given the small difference between both amounts. Therefore, no further details were given about what happened.
Also, two children of an 86-year-old woman from Gran Canaria will also receive 60,000 euros for the defective care of their mother, diagnosed as being at high risk of falling, despite which when she was admitted to the Negrín Hospital in August 2017, adequate security measures were not taken.
Therefore, the patient who also had problems with disorientation and agitation, fell out of bed in October and died two days later. These mishaps had occurred on other previous occasions for the same reason when she was admitted.
Negligence: The case of a girl from Tenerife who had both legs amputated
Another case is that of a girl from Tenerife who had to have both legs amputated at the ankles because when she was treated at a health center for having a high fever, she was not prescribed any antibiotics.
In total, the SCS was ordered to pay 273,000 euros and the obligation to pay for all the operations that are carried out in the future to adapt the prostheses to their physical development.
Also, the husband of a woman who in March 2021 suffered a fall in the shower with loss of consciousness and cervical pain will receive 145,200 euros, given that when she was treated for two consecutive days at the Ingenio Health Center she was diagnosed with cervicalgia.
On both occasions she was discharged without any tests being carried out, so the woman died 24 hours later. The appellant's claim was based on the fact that the fall protocols were not followed and it was not even suspected that it could be a traumatic brain injury