The patient, a fifty-four-year-old obese lady with a history of high BP was diagnosed with stones in left kidney. The anaesthetist cleared her for anaesthesia and surgery despite the fact that her blood pressure on the day was high, and her other vitals were also not in acceptable range.
What’s more shocking is that the patient was operated in a nursing home lacking in critical care infrastructure. However, a high-risk consent was taken from patient’s family.
As fate would have it, the patient suffered post-operative complications just ten minutes after the surgery. She was kept at the nursing home overnight, but her medical condition did not improve.
The patient’s family pleaded with doctors to shift her to a reputed private hospital for better management, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. Instead, the doctors called another doctor and advised that the patient be shifted to another hospital. The reluctant family agreed, but to no avail.
There were no signs of improvement at the second hospital. The patient’s family shifted her to their choice of private hospital, but it was too late. The middle-aged woman succumbed to complications after two days!
Angry and anguished, the family sued the nursing home, its three doctors and the second hospital. It was alleged that the doctors operated upon the patient even though there were no facilities to manage post-operative complications. They did not even refer the patient to a higher centre, added the grieving family. It was further alleged that the second hospital did not provide treatment record or proper discharge summary.
The Consumer Commission went through the medical records of the nursing home, second hospital and the private hospital. The bench seemed less than impressed, as it observed the following:
“On perusal of the sequence of events, it is evident that within ten minutes of operation, the patient developed breathing problem, her pulse was missing and eyes stopped blinking. There was no ICU, oxygen and ventilator facilities despite assurance given by the nursing home. Despite request from family, the patient was not referred, but another doctor was called. Thereafter, the patient was shifted to second hospital under the pretext that all facilities were available there. The patient took one day treatment, and as there was no improvement, she was shifted to the private hospital without issuing treatment details and discharge summary”.
“In my opinion, the nursing home and its doctors were negligent in attending to the patient. Even the medical board gave an expert opinion that the patient should not have been operated for renal stone in the prevailing situation at a non-institutional hospital”.
The nursing home and doctors were held negligent, and ordered to pay compensation to patient’s family.
Source : Order pronounced by National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on 23rd May, 2023.