Extra caution must be exercised before discharging critically ill patients. If the patients choose Discharge Against Medical Advise (DAMA), the same should be noted in medical records. In this case however, the doctor was held negligent for discharging the patient from hospital even though she had severe jaundice and had not opted for DAMA.

Is an error of judgement always considered as negligence? Legally speaking, what is the difference between an error of judgement that is not necessarily negligence and gross negligence? Judgement pronounced by the hon’ble Commission in the present case throws light on this crucial aspect.

Mistakes leading to bizarre incidents is not an uncommon phenomenon, not even for healthcare practitioners. But passing the buck of such mistakes on others is simply not justified, as is noted by the Commission in this weird episode.

Billing issues continue to be the bone of contention between patients and hospitals. Hospitals feel that patients usually crib when paying the bills, while patients feel that they are overcharged.

Medical records have proved to be a saviour for countless number of times in a court of law. In this case however, the hospital and its doctors narrowly escaped the clutches of law even though they had not maintained them as patient’s bluff was called out by the Commission.

Round-the-clock monitoring and presence of specialists to manage serious patients admitted in ICU is mandatory. This story is of a patient who suffered from cancer, was in the ICU, but eventually succumbed to the fatal disease after fighting it for years.

This edition of The MedLegal Times probably could well be named as ‘Bizarre Special’, given the strangeness of the cases. This story does its bit to add to the weird quotient!