After a patient develops hoarseness in his voice due to medical negligence committed by doctors while administering anaesthesia, the Supreme Court has awarded a compensation of Rs. 10 lakhs.
According to a report by LiveLaw, the faulty surgery was conducted by a team of doctors at the Manipal Hospital. Reportedly, the patient (now deceased) had claimed a compensation of Rs. 18 Lakhs.
The Bench Comprising Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah directed the Hospital to pay compensation to the tune of Rs. 10 Lakhs with interest, as against the compensation amounting to Rs. 5 Lakhs awarded by the District forum.
The patient claimed that the Hospital administration had committed a breach of duty while delegating a critical duty to a trainee anaesthetist. He also claimed that the decision led to the paralysis of the left vocal cord due to the faulty insertion of the Double Lumen Tube in the course of administering anaesthesia to him for undergoing the surgery. Consequently, the patient had developed hoarseness in his voice post-operation.
The patient had also claimed that he was deprived of promotion in the job due to such ailment and continued to work on the same post from the year 2003 onwards without promotion till he expired at the end of the year 2015.
Meanwhile, the hospital had claimed that the District Forum had erred in discarding the evidence of the doctors who stated that there was nothing wrong in giving anaesthesia through a double-lumen tube.
“Mere reliance on medical literature would not be sufficient to exonerate the Hospital from its duty of ensuring that the Head of the Department, Anaesthesia ought to have inserted the double lumen tube. Instead, he was not available and the task was delegated to a trainee anaesthetist.” the court observed while disagreeing with the contention of the respondent Hospital as quoted by LiveLaw.
Accordingly, the court directed that the compensation awarded by the District Forum be doubled from Rs. five Lakhs to Rs. 10 lakhs with simple interest calculated @ 10% per annum from the date of filing of the claim petition till the amount is paid, subject to the adjustment of the amounts already released in favour of the appellant patient, LiveLaw reported.
Last week, the Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (DSCDRC) ordered Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and its five doctors to pay Rs 7.20 lakh to a deceased patient’s husband.
According to a report by news agency PTI, the Commission found that they used the woman as “an experimental site” without adhering to the standard line of treatment.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the LatestLaws staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Source Link
Picture Source :
