Dead patient’s husband ordered to pay fine for wasting court’s time

Some patients and their relatives will go to any extent to blame the doctors and claim compensation. Thankfully our robust judicial system can sieve the facts from fiction, ensuring that healthcare practitioners do not suffer due to ridiculous imaginations.

Veena had unbearable pain in the jaw and ear. She visited Dr. Chandru, a general practitioner whom she had been visiting since two decades. Veena was diagnosed with throat infection. An injection was administered and few medicines were prescribed.

Life took an unimaginable turn for both, the doctor and patient thereafter. Veena died the next day!

Veena’s husband sued Dr. Chandru and presented silliest of claims. It was alleged that the patient had a blood clot because of which she suffered excruciating jaw and ear pain. Medicines prescribed by the doctor moved the clot ‘very fast’, it passed through the brain and finally hit her heart! It was claimed that the clot hit the patient’s heart so hard that it left a mark on the anterior wall!

The greedy doctor charged 100 rupees as consultation fee and did not even show any sympathy towards an ailing patient, blurted the husband.

The common sense in allegations was that of a door knob or the patient’s husband had ulterior motives, the Commission may have thought. It was observed from death certificate that the patient fell in bathroom the night after she visited Dr. Chandru. She was hospitalized and succumbed to severe heart attack – a fact that was concealed by the husband.

The Commission observed that there were no symptoms that suggested cardiac ailment at the time of visiting the doctor and treatment provided by him was as per standard protocol.

The Commission reprimanded patient’s husband and fined ten thousand rupees for concealing material facts and for ‘wasting the Commission’s time for an evident purpose’.