SUYASH HOSPITAL PVT LTD Vs. PRASSANNA KUMAR OJHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision petition is filed against the order of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Madhya Pradesh, vide which order of the State Commission affirmed the order of the District Forum. Though it is not necessary to reproduce the facts in detail at this revisional stage, but to dispose of the revision petition, we feel it appropriate to discuss the facts in brief, which are as under :

(2.) THE complainant's mother, Smt. Shantidevi Ojha, was suffering from abdominal pain and was taken to the opposite party Hospital, where Dr. Ashokha Ladha, opposite party No. 3 before the District Forum, diagnosed that she was a patient of Gall Stones and Chronic Cholecystitis. Operation was performed on 2.5.1995. On 8.5.1995, stitches were removed. On the same day, when the patient had a bout of cough following which there was abdominal burst and the abdominal pain which was repaired on the same day by Dr. Ladha. On 9.5.1995, the patient complained of chest pain. She died on 23.5.1995, in spite of efforts by Dr. Jog, Cardiologist. Complaining deficiency in service the complainant, i.e. the son of the patient, filed a complaint claiming a sum of Rs. 1,75,000/- towards expenses, mental pain and sufferings, before the District Forum which awarded Rs. 50,000/- for alleged medical negligence for mental agony and Rs. 1,000/- as costs of the proceedings. Feeling aggrieved by the order of the District Forum, the opposite parties appealed to the State Commission.

(3.) TO come to the correct conclusion as to whether there was any negligence on the part of the Hospital, the State Commission referred to Maingot's Abdominal Operations by Michaeal J., Zinner Seymour J. Schwarts, Harold Ellis, and on the point, as to when abdominal disruption can occur, the State Commission referrred to the Medical Book Bailey's and Love's Short Practice of Surgery, Sixteenth Edition, which reveals that deep sutures should remain in place at least for 14 days and in this particular case, as per the case-sheet, the sutures were removed after the sixth day. In this context the State Commission held as under : "We, therefore, find that though there was no negligence so far as the operation part is concerned, but there had been lapse on the part of the hospital staff in post-operative care. Though the antibiotics were administered to the patient but when she developed complaint of cough and expectoration then there should have been a special care because this wound caused abdominal disruption. Bailey's and Love's Short Practice of Surgery, Sixteenth Edition at page 1056 says that there are more frequent chances of burst in cases of upper abdominal incisions than lower abdominal incisions which we quote :