5 cases of negligence at Gurugram private super-speciality hospitals

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Services

Chandigarh, March 7

As many as five cases of medical negligence were reported from private super speciality hospitals of Gurugram — Medanta, Fortis and Artemis — in 2017 and 2018.

In total, the state reported nine cases with two from Hisar and one each from Jhajjar and Panchkula.

These facts were revealed in a report of the ‘Haryana Vidhan Sabha Subject Committee on Education, Technical Education, Vocational Education, Medical Education and Health Services’.

At Gurugram, there were two complaints against Fortis Hospital in 2017 and both were found correct by the Medical Negligence Board. In 2018, one against Artemis Hospital was found correct while there were two confirmed cases against Medanta Hospital.

The cases

In the case of death of Seema (51) against Fortis Hospital, a medical board opined that not giving emergency medicines to a woman who was admitted at night in such a big hospital and had a chance of heart attack is “negligence”.

The second case of Fortis was related to a patient who had come for bone marrow transplant and got infection at the hospital after treatment.

In 2018, in the case of death of Savitri Devi (61) where the complaint against Artemis Hospital was forwarded by DC Gurugram, the medical board commented, “During treatment, all possible measures were taken to combat the complication. However, there was a judgmental error on the part of the operating team (orthopaedician) to undertake an aggressive surgical approach for an old patient with multiple co-morbid conditions”.

In the complaint — forwarded from Haryana Medical Council — of Gopendra Singh whose child was admitted at Medanta Hospital, it was opined that there was no negligence but the “hospital has charged Rs 1,950 per unit against supply of RDPs (random donor platelets) to the patient instead of Rs 400 per unit fixed for dengue patients as per government guidelines”. The child was later shifted to RML Hospital, Delhi, due to financial constraints. Later, the child died.

In a case of death of Hawa Singh (72) who was admitted to Medanta Hospital with chest pain, the medical board opined, “Considering the very critical condition of the patient with acute coronary syndrome and cardiogenic shock, the patient should have been physically examined by Dr Praveen Chandra (consultant) on urgent basis. But it was not done in this case. Also in his absence — since there are no records of any cardiologists examining the patient from 4 pm (when he was admitted) to 6.50 pm — hence it is presumed that the patient was not under direct care of any cardiologist for which the hospital is responsible.” The complaint in this case was forwarded from the Home Secretary.

Change rules for action to be taken: Panel

The Vidhan Sabha committee observed that the “Civil Surgeon has no power to take any punitive or administrative action against any hospital in case of any negligence” and directed “the Health Department to make the provision in their rules/Act so that strict action against the doctor/hospital/clinic concerned will be taken by the medical negligence board in case of adverse report against them”.