Charity hospital death? Patient still a consumer,must get compensation

The forum gave the ruling dismissing the contentions of the doctor and the hospital that no payment had been taken from the patient and so he was not a consumer as per the C P Act.

It pointed out that the patient has bought medicines from the hospital’s pharmacy and so he made the payment and was a consumer.

“The hospital and the medical shop being run as an integrated facility by one family disproves that no payment was taken by the doctor from the complainants because payment to one becomes payment to both,” the NCDRC bench of Justice R K Batra and Member Vinay Kumar ruled.

The case dated back to 1996 when Rahul,son of Jhansi residents Ashok and Shashi Upadhyaya,fell ill on December 12 and was taken to neighbourhood physician K K Khare,who diagnosed him as suffering from respiratory tract infection and malaria.

But as Rahul’s conditions did not improve,he was taken on December 16 to Jhansi-based Nirmal Hospital run by family members of D N Mishra,who examined him and started his treatment,but only as an outdoor patient.

During adjudication of victim’s parents plea,the NCDRC found that no fresh tests were conducted despite the ailing boy’s failure to respond positively to Khare’s treatment.

The forum also found that despite the boy’s condition deteriorating,Mishra did not admit him to the hospital till December 21,when he was eventually admitted in the hospital but the last minute admission proved futile.

The forum found various other tell-tale evidence of medical negligence in boy’s treatment,including administration of various injections at odd periodic gaps in violation of WHO guidelines and administering gross under dose of various medicines,much below the prescribed limit for the boy’s weight.

The forum also found “serious contradictions and deficiencies in the case summary sheet and the nurse’s daily report” of the hospital,which included some deliberate changes by overwriting in the records of treatment after Rahul’s demise.

Holding these lapses as “unreasonable and unprofessional” the forum said,”What compounds the lapse is the fact that these are the acts of the team at Nirmal Hospital led by a senior medical professional of the stature of (Mishra).”

“The answerability of Dr Mishra increases when we see that Nirmal Hospital,in his own admission,was owned by his wife and managed by his brother and another relative,” the forum added.