The patient, a young boy, was born with congenital conditions – cerebral palsy and hemiplegia. These conditions made his bones brittle and suffered problems of leg movement. He underwent surgery to fix implants on both legs.
After about three years, he was taken to an orthopaedic surgeon. The doctor studied boy’s case and performed surgery to remove the implant.
The boy suffered post-operative complications, and another surgery was performed after about four days.
The young patient’s father sued the doctor and alleged that his boy was in severe pain after first surgery but the doctor simply prescribed painkillers instead of diagnosing the reason for pain. It was further alleged that the doctor attempted to cover up his mistake by advising to ‘leave things as they were’ or to perform another surgery to insert another implant.
The doctor performed surgery negligently that caused breaking of bone, concluded the upset father.
Obviously, the doctor denied these allegations. He stated that while retrieving the implant intra-operatively, it was discovered that one of the screws was jammed in the plate and an un-displaced fracture through the screw was observed after removal of plate and screws. Therefore, the decision to adopt a conservative line of management – applying Plaster of Paris – was taken. The doctor further added that the boy’s parents were explained about risks and complications before performing the surgery.
The Commission rejected doctor’s defence, and observed the following:
“The doctor has admitted to physically seeing the bone of right thigh, and that he could not see this fracture with his naked eyes during surgery; but during the surgery it was un-displaced. Therfore, one can safely conclude that, as fracture was un-displaced, the doctor had not seen the fracture of right femur with naked eyes”.
“The perusal of X-ray film goes to show that, the bone completely took a different angle and leaned to right side at the mid region. When the X-ray showed such badly displaced bone, the second surgery was performed after two days. No acceptable reasons are given for such delay. The patient was continuously crying after first surgery. Such delay in performing the surgery amounts to not only negligence but also deficiency of service”.
“Moreover, by his own admission, when the doctor failed to observe the un-displaced fracture during first surgery, he ventured to make a note in the case sheet that patient’s family has been informed about peri-operative event of fracture thigh L screw site. The X-ray was taken next day after surgery. So, there is no chance for the doctor to even remotely say that, there was un-displaced fracture while he was trying to remove the screw affixed to the plate. Making an entry regarding such fact on day of the surgery, before X-ray was taken, is nothing but tampering the record to absolve himself from negligence and deficiency of service. The brittleness of bones is not the point for consideration to assess his negligence, but the tampering of record and setting forth a version that he observed the un-displaced fracture at the time of operation and thought of treating conservatively and for that reason applied POP etc., is nothing but tissues of false statement”.
One can rarely get away with tampering records and hiding mishaps in a court of law. Probably the orthopaedic surgeon realized this fact, as he was held negligent and ordered to pay compensation.
Source : Order pronounced by Telangana State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on 19th June, 2023.