The Supreme Court has passed a landmark award in Indian medical negligence today, increasing to Rs 5.96 crore ($970,000) the compensation to be paid by Kolkata’s AMRI Hospital and doctors for the negligent death of Anuradha Saha in 1998, according to a PTI and other media reports.
Apex court judges Chandramauli KR Prasad and V Gopala Gowda upped the Rs 1.73 crore compensation awarded in 2011 by the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) to Saha’s widower, who had originally asked for Rs 77 crore. [Correction: One of the bench members was incorrect in an earlier version of the story]
Three doctors will each have to pay between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh out of the total, having also been to blame in the death of Saha, an Indian-born US-resident whose deadly skin disease was misdiagnosed and not treated properly on a visit to Kolkata.
However, the Supreme Court decreased the total award by 10 per cent due to the husband’s contributory negligence. The court had cleared the respondents of criminal liability in 2009 but upheld the civil case, requesting the NCDRC to fix the quantum of damages.
In the US, where multi-million dollar medical negligence claims are de rigeur, medical practitioners and hospitals require costly insurance to protect themselves from liability from lawsuits, while lawyers and law firms have specialised in the lucrative practice of suing hospitals for malpractice.
Click here to read judgment available
CHANDRAMAULI KR. PRASAD
Comments
Also in today's world awarding Rs 5 crores as compensation is not a big sum for the corporate hospitals. Some earn it in a month or even a week.
We need to take or make more stringent actions to prevent this from happening on every day or minute basis.
[b]Hope all Courts take note and the trend continues.[/b] Only then corporations will learn that they cant "get away" with their cr@p.
[b]As regards not criminally punishing doctors[/b], the reasoning is in the SC's decisions in Dr. Suresh Gupta's case (2 judge) and the subsequent Jacob Matthews case (3 judge). In those cases the Court had read the word "gross" into section 304A IPC, stating that doctors cannot be punished for causing death by negligence [u]unless[/u] the negligence is "gross". The word gross was read into the section, notwithstanding its penal nature which typically requires strict interpretation. Factually, affixing an empty oxygen mask on a patient gasping for breath wasn't "gross" enough in Jacob Matthews! But then, the Court said that doctors should be placed on a special pedestal given the nature of their job.
WBMC is not the only authority. In fact, it is the last authority you should hope to get justice from. If you believe your wife was killed by doctors' negligence, you possibly have obtained expert opinions on the same who examined the patient and the medical records. Even if you've not obtained opinions, it may be possible to get opinions now, based on records. Please use them and file a FIR for causing death by negligence - section 304A of the IPC - against the doctors as well as the hospital's administrator/registrar/superintendent and its executive directors. If the police refuses to lodge FIR, file your complaint directly with the appropriate Judicial Magistrate, who will then order the police to take action. You'll need a lawyer for this. You should also file a case with the Consumer Forum, seeking compensation. Since your tragedy happened more than 3 years ago, you will have to explain the delay in approaching the Courts if you haven't done so already. Again, a lawyer will help you that and the Courts should be sympathetic in condoning the delay given your circumstances and the trauma you have gone through after the sad incident.
Wish you all the best in your fight for justice.
The judgment is here, by the way, for those interested:
http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=40897