Performing surgery sans ICU is medical negligence, says Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has held that performing surgery in a hospital without an intensive care unit amounted to medical negligence and directed a doctor who performed the operation in January 1994 to pay Rs 5 lakhs as compensation to a family of a woman who died during the procedure.

A bench of Justices A.K. Goel and U.U. Lalit pointed out that neither the state nor the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission had examined the plea of the appellant in this case (legal heirs of victim Bijoy Sinha Roy) that the operation should not have been performed at a nursing home which did not have the ICU when it could be reasonably foreseen that without ICU there was post operative risk to the life of the patient.

“Having regard to the fact that the matter has been pending for the last 23 years, instead of remanding the matter for fresh adjudication on this issue, we consider it appropriate in the interests of justice to direct Dr Bishwanath Das to pay a sum of `5 lakh to the heirs of the appellant without any interest within three months,” the bench said.

The bench also expressed serious concern over the inordinate delay in the disposal of disputes by consumer fora. It said a person coming to a consumer court with a grievance of deficiency in service needs immediate relief. The very objective of setting up a consumer fora was to provide speedy remedy to a consumer.

It said the National Commission is competent to introduce monitoring mechanism for speedy disposal. It is well known that matters are pending at different levels for sufficiently long period which defeats the very object and purpose of the Act.