What should have been a short, straightforward procedure to remove a metal plate from a child’s leg ended in his death — and a hospital now stands held accountable for it.
The seven-year-old had fractured his thigh bone three years earlier and undergone surgery at a tertiary hospital where a plate and screws were fixed to stabilise the bone. Years later, with the bone healed, his parents approached their employer-run hospital to remove the implant. The doctors assured them that it was a simple operation — routine, safe, and barely requiring a day’s stay. What followed proved otherwise.
The removal surgery took place without incident, and by the afternoon the child regained consciousness. By evening, he complained of pain and was given an injection for relief. No doctor visited him thereafter; he remained in the general ward under a single nurse’s care. Late that night, the child began convulsing and bleeding through the nose. The nurse called for help, but no specialist was on duty. An anaesthetist attended briefly before the boy was moved to the ICU, where attempts to revive him failed. He was declared dead soon after midnight.
The family alleged negligence and a lack of post-operative monitoring. The hospital denied fault, claiming the surgery was uneventful and that the child had received “excellent care.” It also argued that since the hospital treated employees free of cost, the family was not a “consumer” under the Consumer Protection Act.
The Tamil Nadu State Consumer Commission disagreed. It held that treatment under employment benefits isn’t free service — employees indirectly contribute to such facilities through their salaries, making them consumers entitled to legal recourse. More crucially, the Commission found serious lapses: the hospital had not obtained surgical details from the earlier implanting institution, had conducted no fresh diagnostic scans, and had failed to keep the child under ICU observation after surgery.
Citing Supreme Court precedents, the Commission concluded that the hospital and its doctors had breached their duty of care by neglecting continuous monitoring and failing to ensure qualified supervision during the post-operative hours — the “golden window” when the patient deteriorated. The hospital and its staff were jointly ordered to pay ₹20 lakh in compensation to the bereaved family.
IML Insight
Even a minor procedure can turn major when vigilance lapses. Courts repeatedly emphasise that post-operative care is as critical as the operation itself — particularly in paediatric cases. Staffing shortages, missed monitoring, and absent doctors are not logistical errors; in law, they are lapses of duty.
Source : Order pronounced by Tamil Nadu State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on 16th June, 2025.