In the latest development, the Uttar Pradesh State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission ordered a nursing home and a homeopathic practitioner in Lucknow to pay over Rs 30 lakh as compensation to a man whose pregnant wife died soon after the delivery of their child due to medical negligence.
How Did This Happen?
In a case Vinay Kumar Mishra vs. Mankameshwar Nursing Home, the Consumer Court Presiding Member Rajendra Singh and Judicial Member Vikas Saxena found that the doctor had misrepresented herself as a gynecologist and she failed to take care of the patient.
Further, the commission noted that “Now it is clear that there is total lack of medical protocol in the treatment of the patient and the opposite party knowingly deputed herself as a gynecologist and she advised allopathic medicines. If the complainant would have known that she is not a registered Gynecologist she would not have come to her nursing home for delivery. So it is a clear case of medical negligence and deficiency in service.”
The complaint by Vinay Kumar Mishra, stated that his wife was admitted to Mankameshwar Nursing Home on January 15, 2014 where she gave birth to a female child a day later.
Lateron, Dr. Meena Pandey, who had allegedly presented herself as a gynecologist, had asked Mishra to arrange for blood.
After arranging the blood, when he reached the nursing home, he was informed that his wife had died due to excessive bleeding.
It was a shock to Mishra when he came to know that Dr. Pandey was only having a degree in homeopathic medicine and she had treated his wife with allopathic medicine.
Considering the situation, the complaint has also filed a complaint with the Police and Medical Council.
He has also approached the Commission for compensation.
In response to this, the hospital and the doctor have denied the allegation that Dr. Pandey had presented herself as a gynecologist.
They even denied that she had prescribed any allopathic medicine.
In their defense, they submitted that the patient was treated by Dr Pandey’s husband, who is a MBBS doctor and co-owner of the nursing home.
The other fact is that the Commission has noted that even though the patient’s condition had become critical after profuse bleeding, she had not been shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Negligence In Providing Medical Care
The Commission said, “At 1 PM on 16. 01.2014 the patient was declared dead. It shows that there was a total lack of post delivery treatment in which the opposite parties totally failed to discharge their duties. They were negligent in not providing the supportive medical care as per medical protocol to the patient.”
The blood should have been arranged for at the very beginning and not at the 11th hour, according to the commission.
Further, the Commission said, “It was the duty of the opposite parties to inform the patient’s attendant in time about the need of any blood or any other medicines which may be necessary in the treatment of the patient but they have taken it very lightly. So there is medical negligence and the maxim res ipsa loquitur applies in this case.”
They further held that the complainant was entitled to a payment of Rs 25 lakh for medical negligence and deficiency in service.
In addition to that he is entitled to have Rs 5 lakh for mental pain and agony and Rs 20,000 towards the costs of the case.
