The day-long hearing, which largely comprised cases of rural Maharashtra, highlighted the dismissal condition of health services.
Suresh Dharamdas Naik (25) lost his right limb to gross medical negligence after a minor accident in March 2015. On Wednesday, giving literal meaning to fast-track justice, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) gave Naik and several other victims a ray of hope.
The commission, in a public hearing at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), held officials of Nandurbar civil hospital guilty of 'gross medical negligence' which led to the loss of Naik's limb. The commission has asked the state to bear the cost of Naik's artificial limb and also to give him a compensation of Rs2 lakh for his mental agony. Naik was reportedly operated a week after he met with the accident that had cut through his artery. He was not bandaged every day and that led to the infection spreading beyond control. Besides, despite being a tribal with a BPL card, Naik was illegally charged Rs1,050 for three bottles of blood.
The story of Sheetal (23) from Sholapur is no less traumatic. She was declared HIV positive in her ninth month of pregnancy and was referred to a bigger hospital by the sub-district hospital at Indrapur. She was admitted to Sassoon hospital in Sholapur. Here she delivered a baby boy and soon both mother and the baby were being treated for HIV on the basis of the reports. Fortunately, the error in the reports was spotted by a doctor. Sheetal's reports were accidentally exchanged with an HIV positive patient by the lab technician.
Finding it a case of "gross mental agony and distress", the bench comprising acting chairman of NHRC justice Cyriac Joseph and MHRC chairperson SR Bannurmath asked the state government to give Rs1 lakh compensation to the victims.
The day-long hearing, which largely comprised cases of rural Maharashtra, highlighted the dismissal condition of health services.
In a case, which NHRC could not take up due to jurisdiction issues, a healthy infant was allegedly reported dead after the administration of a vaccine at the local primary health centre in Yavatmal. Complainant Ganesh Pawar said his child got high fever after the vaccination and when he rushed it to the primary health cetntre at 7.30pm, he found it to be closed. The case, however, was older than a year and hence NHRC could not take action against the authorities.
Similarly, another case wherein the complainant lost her right hand allegedly due to medical negligence at Bhabha hospital in Bandra while getting saline administered, did not reach its logical conclusion due to lack of jurisdiction.
In another case from Pune, the commissioner summoned for degrees and experience certificates of all the doctors and support staff after the victim claimed that her husband died of H1N1 infection as inexperienced and under-qualified doctors attended to him.
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