Noting that the hospital had adopted a “totally wrong and illegal line of medical treatment”, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) recently directed Safdarjung Hospital to pay over 25 lakh in compensation to the wife of a man, suffering from a lower respiratory tract infection, leaking heart valves and left ventricular failure, who died at the hospital during treatment in 2017.
In doing so, the national commission upheld an order of a state commission directing the hospital to provide the same amount to the woman.
The NCDRC, in its order on April 12, noted that the standard medical protocol required administering an “essential” injection called Nirmin, which was not available at the hospital, and that there was no evidence that the alternative Albumin injection given to the patient was the right injection.
Nirmin is a drug which is used to treat heart failures, among many other things.
Earlier, a state consumer commission had granted Asha Goyal, the wife of the deceased, Rs 25 lakh noting that it was “shocking” that the injection wasn’t available in a “big hospital like Safdarjung”.