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There are cases where
doctors are unable to tell whether a newborn child is alive or dead, IMAGINE being buried alive. If you think that it is the stuff horror movies are made of, think again. Last fortnight, a newborn infant in Delhi almost met that fate, thanks to the doctor who declared the child as "dead." And the child would have been buried alive, if the mother had not expressed the desire to have a last look at her child. In far away Shillong, Meghalaya, another child would have been buried alive in more or less similar circumstances. And the doctor, who was responsible for it, was taken to the consumer court by the parents and was asked to pay a compensation of Rs 1.25 lakh along with 15 per cent interest. This case dates back to June 6, 1995, when Ms Rose Mary Lyngdoh took her twin infants, who were ill, to a private clinic in Shillong. After examining the babies, the doctor declared that one of the twins was "brought dead" and gave a discharge certificate to that effect. As for the other twin, he said she was in a very serious condition and should be rushed to a hospital for treatment. He even declined the mother’s plea to re-examine the child declared as dead, saying that it served no purpose. Following this, the bereaved father of the child decided to bury it in his village and his brother-in-law even ordered a coffin. But the mother somehow felt that her child was not dead. So she rushed both the twins to the hospital and to her great joy, the doctors there found the child to be alive. The twins were treated there, got well and were subsequently discharged. Shocked at the callous negligence of the first doctor, the couple filed a complaint before the District Forum in Shillong, which held the doctor guilty of negligence. The doctor filed an appeal before the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Shillong, against this order, arguing that the child was brought in a morbid condition with no audible heartbeat or respiration and in such circumstances a mistake was quite likely in a clinic where necessary equipment would not be available. He also claimed that even though he had opined that the child was dead, he had suggested to the parents to rush the child to a hospital. He also argued that in any case the child was saved and the agony of the parents was short-lived. The State Commission rejected these arguments and upheld the order of the District Forum. Said Mr Ramesh Bawri, Member of the Commission, in his well-reasoned order: "In our view, if the appellant-doctor had no equipment in his private chamber to help him even distinguish between a living and a dead patient, he ought not to have accepted patients in his private chamber. If informing the parents that their child was dead and writing ‘brought dead’ on the discharge slip was not an act of negligence, but an error’ as alleged by him, we wonder which other act would constitute medical negligence. The appellant, a licensed doctor, could not afford to make a ‘mistake’ of such gravity as pronouncing a live human being as dead". Said the Commission further: "We may also state here that the doctor’s defence that the remark ‘brought dead’ made by him was given with a note of interrogation is not borne out by the records. Having written ‘brought dead’ on the discharge slip and having verbally told the parents that the baby was dead, it would be unimaginable that a doctor would, at the same time, advise them to take the child for treatment to a hospital". The Commission also said that the argument of the doctor that the agony of the parents was short-lived as the child eventually was treated and lived was totally unacceptable. Said the Commission, in conclusion: "We can imagine the shock, sorrow and pain of a child’s parents when they are told by a doctor that their infant child is dead`85 Moreover, in our opinion, the matter needs to be looked at not only from the angle of what happened but also seen from the perspective of what could have happened and yet, mercifully did not happen. Inevitably, an innocent child would have been buried alive and worst of all, no one would have even known". (Dr M.L.Deb Vs Smt Rose Mary Longdoh, appeal no 12 (M) of 1997, decided in 2003). |
