Consumer commission rejects private hospital's appeal

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Chandigarh, February 10

While rejecting the appeal of a private hospital, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Chandigarh, has upheld the order of the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, which had directed it to pay Rs10 lakh for medical negligence and harassment. The hospital was also told to pay Rs10,000 as litigation costs.

The forum had passed the order in 2018 on a complaint of Gurmeet Singh and Rajinder Kaur, parents of a son, through advocates Dinesh Ghai and Nikhil Ghai. They alleged that their child died due to negligence.

The complainants alleged that the hospital ignored the symptoms of the child’s heart condition. They took their newborn to the hospital for a routine check-up in March after they noticed that he was breathing fast and not feeling comfortable. They visited the hospital six times since March.

They said their son was again taken for vaccination on May 21, 2016. They again took the child to the hospital the next day after he did not sleep and continued crying.

When the child’s condition worsened, he was taken to the emergency ward of the PGI where the doctor clinically suspected a case of congenital cyanotic heart disease. The child was admitted to the ICU, but his condition did not improve and he ultimately died on May 26, 2016.

The complainants alleged that had the hospital exercised reasonable skill of expertise, the problem could have been detected and treated by way of corrective surgery. Hence, it was a case of medical negligence on part of the hospital.

The hospital, however, denied the allegations and claimed there was no negligence on their part.

The hospital claimed that the complainants never told them that the baby had signs and symptoms of fast breathing. Clinically, there were no signs and symptoms of any congenital cyanotic heart disease with the child as cyanosis was not present. They did not give any treatment to the child, except for vaccination which was demanded by the complainants.

The hospital said on a complaint of criminal offence submitted by the complainants to the police, the medical board had examined the record and had also heard the complainants. The board did not find any case of medical negligence against the hospital.

After hearing the arguments, the commission rejected the appeal of the hospital. “In our opinion, since there is no error on part of the district forum in deciding other issues raised by the parties, the findings given in the order impugned did not need any interference of this commission. Thus, the order impugned stands upheld,” said the commission comprising Justice Raj Shekhar Attri and Padma Pandey.