Ahmedabad doc held guilty of medical negligence

The doctor has been identified as Kanu Patel,who ran the Nar-Narayan Hospital from the Bapunagar area of Ahmedabad in 2001. The deceased patient has been identified as Dhuliben Solanki.

According to the details of the case,Dhuliben was admitted to Dr Patel’s hospital for an appendicitis surgery in 2001. But she never regained consciousness after being administered anaesthesia,and died a few days later.

Dhuliben’s husband Jethabhai then lodged a case of medical negligence against Dr Patel in the Ahmedabad District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum through his lawyer,Vinod Brahmbhatt.

The forum found Dr Patel and the anaesthetist guilty,and ordered them to pay Rs 2 lakh with the annual interest rate of 9 per cent as compensation to Solanki.

Dr Patel challenged this order in the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum,which upheld the decision. He then challenged the state forum’s verdict at the national level.

Dismissing Dr Patel’s appeal,Justice Ashok Bhan and B K Taimni,the president and member of the national forum respectively,observed,“…there is no evidence and rebuttal of the evidence adduced by the complainant (Solanki) before the District Forum. The surgical notes are not there as to what did the petitioner do when he noted the onset of ‘Pulmonary oedema’; and lastly they did not follow the procedure prescribed in the medical literature produced by the petitioner (Dr Patel) himself.”