The Punjab State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has held that doctors or hospitals can be held liable for medical negligence only where their conduct falls below the standards of a reasonably competent practitioner in the field. Setting aside compensation of Rs 5 lakh awarded to a complainant by the District Commission in a case of alleged medical negligence, the Commission categorically ruled that negligence must be “culpable or gross” and could not be inferred merely from an error of judgment.
Presiding Judicial Member HPS Mahal and member Kiran Sibal observed that the complainant had failed to establish any deficiency in service or negligence on the part of the treating doctors by way of cogent evidence.
Speaking for the Commission, member Sibal held that the District Commission wrongly allowed the complaint without properly appreciating the evidence on record. The matter arose from the death of the complainant’s wife, who was suffering from adenocarcinoma (cancer) and had been under treatment at Sandhu Cancer Care Center, Ludhiana, under Dr Devinder Singh Sandhu. She remained admitted to the hospital as indoor patient.
She was admitted to Raman Hospital, Ludhiana, in March 2015, where she underwent “sigmoid colectomy” but developed an “anastomotic leak”. Subsequently, she was admitted to another hospital, where she underwent “exploratory laparotomy with colostomy” and was diagnosed with “peritonitis". Her condition deteriorated and she died at DMC Hospital, Ludhiana, on April 23, 2015.
Her husband alleged that negligence during treatment led to her death and filed a consumer complaint, which the District Commission allowed in September 2022. The Commission directed the doctor and the two medical institutes to pay Rs 5 lakh with 4 per cent interest from the date of death, besides Rs 5,000 as litigation costs. This order was challenged through two separate appeals by the doctors and institutes.