Leaving a foreign object inside patient’s body is a grievous enough case of negligence. But not submitting a reply on such complain can draw adverse inference, as this nursing home realised.
Sonika was due to deliver and had approached a nursing home where she was admitted. A healthy baby boy was delivered, much to the couple’s delight.
The joy was short-lived though. Few days after the delivery, Sonika felt unbearable pain in her abdomen and consulted the nursing home where she was prescribed painkillers and injections.
The pain persisted and few days later she visited the nursing home again when she was told that she had stomach infection and gastroenteritis. The line of treatment was changed, and new medicines were prescribed albeit without any diagnosis!
The new medicines did not improve Sonika’s condition and she also started losing weight quickly. The worried husband took her to another doctor who advised a CT scan of the abdomen that revealed a foreign object!
A surgery was performed and the foreign object was removed. The nursing home was sued and the couple demanded a hefty compensation.
The Commission perhaps was in a dilemma – what was worse? Leaving the foreign object inside a patient and prescribing medicines without any diagnosis or being indifferent and not responding to the patient’s legal complain?
Whatever be the reason, negligence on the nursing home’s part was crystal clear. They were not only held negligent but also ordered to shell out twenty lac rupees as compensation!
Source: Order pronounced by Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on 14th November, 2019.