The term "action for medical malpractice" means any claim for damages resulting from the death injury to any person arising out of:
(1) Health, medical, dental, or surgical service, diagnosis, prescription, treatment, or care rendered by a person authorized by law to perform such service or by any person acting under the supervision and control of the lawfully authorized person; or
(2) Care or service rendered by any public or private hospital, nursing home, clinic, authority, facility, or institution, or by any officer, agent, or employee thereof acting within the scope of his employment.
An action for medical malpractice shall be brought within two years after the date on which an injury or death arising from a negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred. In no event may an action for medical malpractice be brought more than five years after the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred.
The limitations of Code Section 9-3-71 shall not apply where a foreign object has been left in a patient's body, but in such a case an action shall be brought within one year after the negligent or wrongful act or omission is discovered. For purposes of this Code section, the term "foreign object" shall not include a chemical compound, fixation device, or prosthetic aid or device.
Dalbey v. Banks, 245 Ga. 162, 264 S.E.2d 4 (1980). (The two-year statute bars an action for negligence of the physician in failing to find and remove a piece of glass from the patient's body. Such an object is not an object so as to come within the exception to the statute permitting an action to be brought within one year after discovery. The "foreign object" exception refers to things placed in the patient's body during a medical procedure.)
Hamrick v. Ray, 171 Ga. App. 60, 318 S.E.2d 790 (1984). (An action was brought against a dentist for leaving a broken drill bit in a tooth during a root canal procedure. The failure to inform the patient of that fact is not to be considered a separate act of malpractice. It simply tolls the one-year statute until the patient discovers the foreign object.)
Bevel v. Routledge, 168 Ga. App. 89, 308 S.E.2d 207 (1983). (The statute bars an action by a patient in whom a nasogastric feeding tube was left, where the action is brought more than two years after the wrongful act and more than one year after he discovered the presence of the tube in his stomach.)
Ivey v. Scoggins, 163 Ga. App. 741, 295 S.E.2d 164 (1982). (A suture left in the patient's ureter during a hysterectomy, subsequently causing the loss of her kidney, was held to be a foreign object within the contemplation of the exception in the statute of limitations. The failure to remove the suture "goes beyond ordinary negligence" and constitutes a continuing tort that tolls the statute until the object is discovered.)
Allrid v. Emory Univ., 285 S.E.2d 521 (Ga. 1982). (If a physician knowingly injects a patient with a potentially hazardous substance and fails to warn him thereof, such facts would constitute fraud and toll the statute of limitations. However, if such physician is not an agent of the defendant hospital his negligence would not be attributable to the hospital. The case involved the use of Thorotrast, a radioactive substance which gradually destroys body tissues, during an angiogram.)
Charter Peachford Behavioral Health System, Inc. v. Kohout, 504 S.E.2d 514, 518 (Ga. Ct. App. 1998). (Even if the plaintiff could show actual fraud in the concealment of her action for alleged misdiagnosis and treatment by the defendant clinic and its therapists, including representations that she had been sexually abused, if the plaintiff knew all of the facts necessary to show malpractice prior to the running of the statute, then such knowledge would prevent the statute from being tolled.)
Rowell v. McCue, 188 Ga. App. 528, 373 S.E.2d 243 (1988). (The physician's failure to disclose what should be disclosed can amount to fraud which tolls the statute of limitations. The physician-patient relationship creates a duty on the part of the physician to inform the patient of his condition. The patient must present evidence of a known failure to reveal negligence in order to show fraud.)
Lorentzson v. Rowell, 171 Ga. App. 821, 321 S.E.2d 341 (1984). (The statute of limitations was tolled by the action of the ophthalmologist, who evaded questioning as to whether the plaintiff's eye problem had been caused by medication (Inflamase Forte 1%) he had prescribed.)