A consumer court ordered a doctor from Surat and his hospital to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to the family of a woman who died in childbirth, allegedly due to medical negligence on part of the doctor, as he was not present for most of the time after she was brought to the hospital.

The case involves Dr Mukund Patel and Namrata Hospital in Katargam in Surat. The complaint was filed by Kirit Tailor and his three children, stating that Tailor’s wife, Binita (28), was taken to the hospital at 1am on January 25, 2006, when she started having labour pain. The doctor was not present and a hospital staffer attended to her. The staffer called the doctor and he instructed the staffer over the telephone to administer an injection.

The family submitted that Binita was taken to the labour room at 7.45am. Her health was good at the time and she walked to the room. In five minutes, her health deteriorated. She gave birth to a boy, but due to her critical condition, she had to be shifted to one Ashaktashram Hospital, where shedied at 11.45am.

The family first filed a complaint in 2011 with the Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission, Surat (additional), which turned down the plaint in 2013. The family approached the Gujarat State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission raising the same contention that it was negligence on the part of the doctor, because he remained absent for most of the time and he claimed to have entered the labour room from the back, but by then the patient’s condition had worsened.

The doctor’s defence was that as soon as the patient’s condition deteriorated, he called a physician, an anesthetist and a child specialist. It was after consultation with these doctors that the patient was referred to another hospital, where the facilities were better. It was due to their efforts that the child was saved.

The consumer commission concluded that there was a contradiction in the doctor’s version. “When the patient was healthy before entering in labour room and her condition became critical inside the labour room, then only the doctor only knows what happened in the labour room.

But he has not produced any evidence to prove that he was not negligent, and therefore in the opinion of this commission the opponent doctor is liable for the critical condition of the patient and it is the gross medical negligence on the part of the opponent doctor,” the commission noted while asking the doctor to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation with 6% interest from the time the complaint was filed.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/pay-rs-10-lakh-to-patients-kin/articleshow/87090089.cms