New Delhi:The Supreme Court has ordered the Manipal hospital in Karnataka to pay Rs 10 lakh to family members of a deceased patient for deficiency in service, saying "mere reliance on medical literature would not be sufficient to exonerate the hospital from its duty".
The deceased virtually lost voice, post the lung surgery in 2003 and continued on the same post of area sales manager for a private company from the year 2003 onwards without promotion till he expired at the end of the year 2015.
A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said, "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 counsel, representing the deceased’s family, submitted that the deceased was working as an area sales manager in the private sector and was deprived of his promotions and his career nosedived due to the hoarseness of his voice.
The counsel said the deceased had virtually lost his voice and continued on the same post from the year 2003 onwards without promotion till he expired at the end of the year 2015.
He was working on the same salary as was being paid to him at the time of his initial engagement, i.e., ₹30,000 per month. The counsel for the appellant sought compensation of Rs 18 lakh. The hospital sought to rely upon the medical literature to reject the claim of deficiency.
The top court doubled the compensation of Rs five lakh awarded by the district consumer forum to the widow of patient J Douglas Luiz. "It is deemed appropriate to direct that the compensation awarded by the District Forum be doubled from ₹5,00,000/ to ₹10,00,000/ 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 deceased – appellant," said the bench.
The bench, in its order, passed on February 6, said the district forum at Bengaluru ought to have taken all these aspects into consideration for arriving at a rightful compensation payable to the deceased which in the instant case, has not been done. The apex court said since the complainant died during the proceedings before the NCDRC, no useful purpose would be served for directing re-appreciation of the evidence.
"The NCDRC frowned on the delegation of such a critical duty on a trainee anaesthetist and treated the same as a breach of duty of care," the counsel for the deceased’s family pointed out.
"In other words, the paralysis of the left vocal cord of the deceased-appellant was attributed to the faulty insertion of the Double Lumen Tube in the course of administering anaesthesia to him for undergoing the surgery," the counsel added.
The bench said the records reveal that the hospital did not object to the said expert doctors deposing in the case, nor did the hospital file an application for an expert to be appointed by the district forum to give an opinion in the instant case.
