The Uttar Pradesh State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission recently ordered a nursing home and a homeopathic practitioner in Lucknow to pay over ₹30 lakh as compensation to a man whose pregnant wife died soon after the delivery of their child due to medical negligence [Vinay Kumar Mishra vs. Mankameshwar Nursing Home].
The Consumer Court Presiding Member Rajendra Singh and Judicial Member Vikas Saxena found that the doctor had misrepresented herself as a gynaecologist and then failed to take care of the patient.
“Now it is clear that there is total lack of medical protocol in the treatment of the patient and the opposite party knowingly deputed herself as a gynaecologist and she advised allopathic medicines. If the complainant would have known that she is not registered Gynaecologist she would not have come to her nursing home for delivery. So it is a clear case of medical negligence and deficiency in service,” the Commission said.
The decision was passed on a complaint by Vinay Kumar Mishra, who had stated that his wife was admitted to Mankameshwar Nursing Home on January 15, 2014 where she gave birth to a female child a day later.
Dr. Meena Pandey, who had allegedly presented herself as a gynaecologist, had asked Mishra to arrange for blood. However, when he reached the hospital after arranging the blood, he was told that his wife had died due to excessive bleeding.
Mishra was shocked when came to know that Dr. Pandey was only having a degree in homeopathic medicine but had treated his wife with allopathic medicine. Besides filing a complaint with the Police and Medical Council, he also approached the Commission for compensation.
The hospital and the doctor denied the allegation that Dr. Pandey had presented herself as a gynaecologist or that she had prescribed any allopathic medicine. It was submitted that the patient was treated by Dr Pandey’s husband, who is a MBBS doctor and co-owner of the nursing home.
The Commission found that even though the patient’s condition had become critical after profuse bleeding, she had not been shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
“At 1 PM on 16. 01.2014 the patient was declared dead. It shows that there was total lack of post delivery treatment in which the opposite parties totally failed to discharge their duties. They were negligent in not providing the supportive medical care as per medical protocol to the patient,” the Commission added.
It further opined that the blood should have been arranged for at the very beginning and not at the 11th hour.
“It was duty of the opposite parties to inform the patient’s attendant in time about the need of any blood or any other medicines which may be necessary in the treatment of the patient but they have taken it very lightly. So there is medical negligence and the maxim res ipsa loquitur applies in this case,” the Commission said.
Accordingly, it held the complainant was entitled to a payment of ₹25 lakh for medical negligence and deficiency in service, ₹5 lakh for mental pain and agony and ₹20,000 towards the costs of the case.
Advocate Hermann Mishra represented the complainant.
Advocate Ashok Kumar Rai represented the opposite parties (nursing home and homeopathic practitioner).
