Ahmedabad, 19 October
A consumer court in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad directed a hospital to pay Rs 11.23 lakh as compensation along with interest to the next of kin of a patient who died by a doctor at the facility to remove his kidney instead of operating a kidney stone. happened immediately after.
The consumer court held KMG General Hospital, run by the charitable trust at Balasinor in Gujarat’s Mahisagar district, responsible for “medical negligence” through “adverse liability”, or “the liability of an employer for the negligent act of its employees”.
“An employer is not only responsible for his acts of commission and omission but also for the negligence of his employees, so long as the act is within the course and scope of their employment,” in the order passed recently by Dr. JG Meewan. Having said. Presiding member of Gujarat Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Ahmedabad.
It ordered the hospital to pay Rs 11.23 lakh to the complainant along with 7.5 per cent interest from the date of filing the complaint, along with Rs 5,000 towards mental agony and cost of the complaint.
The court’s order came on a petition filed by United India Insurance Company Ltd, challenging an order passed by the District Consumer Redressal Commission in Nadiad in August 2012 on a complaint by the legal heirs of the deceased patient Devendra Rawal.
The District Commission in its 2012 order had ordered the doctor, hospital and insurance company to pay compensation of Rs 11.23 lakh along with interest to the complainant.
The hospital had taken an insurance policy legal liability for indoor and outdoor patients, and the state commission stated that since it was not taken for professional compensation, or for medical negligence of the doctor and the hospital, the insurance company was not liable to pay .
According to the original complaint, Rawal had approached the hospital on May 24, 2011 with complaints including difficulty urinating, and an investigation revealed that he had a 14-millimeter stone in his kidney.
He was advised to go to a higher center for an operation, but considering his financial condition, he preferred to take medicines prescribed by the doctors in the hospital, and his condition worsened, after which, on 3 September 2011, he was given a medical examination. had to pass through. operation in the same hospital
Although the operation was to remove the stone, his left kidney was removed and during the post-operation period, the patient was unable to urinate.
As his condition worsened, he was shifted to another hospital, and from there to the Kidney Hospital in Ahmedabad, where he died on January 8, 2012, as per the original complaint. -PTI