The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has asked a hospital in Kerala to pay a compensation of Rs 1 million after they failed to take 'due care' of a patient.
NEW DELHI: The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has asked a hospital in Kerala to pay a compensation of Rs 1 million after they failed to take 'due care' of a patient and performed major surgery without proper facilities.
Justices SN Kapoor and BK Tamini held Dr Madhani Ama Memorial Trust guilty of medical negligence and awarded compensation of Rs 1 million to the husband of the deceased and directed that two-thirds of the amount be deposited in the name of her children.
Sreedevi Padmanabhan was admitted to the hospital with abdominal pain May 25, 1996. She was diagnosed with a fibroid uterus and doctors performed the surgery after four days.
But during the surgery, the patient developed a respiratory failure and required continuous ventilatory support. Since sufficient facilities were not available at the hospital, it was decided to shift her to another hospital in Coimbatore, where she died soon after being admitted.
Sreedevi's husband alleged that the hospital conducted the surgery without proper ventilatory support and did not even carry out pre-operative tests to ascertain the ability of the patient to withstand the rigorous of major surgery, especially when it was not an emergency.
However, the hospital pleaded that the pulse of the patient was normal when they shifted her to the hospital in Coimbatore and that patient had died due to other medical complications.
"Doctors at the hospital and those who accompanied the patient in ambulance failed to take 'due-care' of the patient resulting in her death within four hours of her arrival at the Coimbatore hospital. We hold the hospital guilty of medical negligence," the commission ruled.
The commission added that it was wrong on the part of the hospital to operate on a patient without life saving drugs and to have asked the patient's relatives to get the medicines. It instructed the hospital not to compromise on allied infrastructure and support systems while performing critical surgeries.
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