In a petition related to medical negligence, the division bench of the high court has issued a notice to Dr Ravi P Teja who was not registered with the Goa Medical Council when a complaint of medical negligence was filed against him.
He performed the laparoscopic appendectomy on a patient, advocate Moses Pinto, at Victor hospital in Margao in Aug 2023. The procedure allegedly led to complications.
Pinto went to the HC challenging the dismissal of his medical negligence complaint by the ethics and disciplinary committee of the Goa Medical Council.
He submitted to the HC that the committee proceeded with the inquiry and then dismissed his complaint despite the doctor not possessing a valid registration with the Goa Medical Council at the time the complaint was lodged.
The doctor was issued notice in March 2024 for practising without registration with the Goa Medical Council. He stated that there was a delay because the Andhra Pradesh Medical Council had not issued an NOC, as there was a strike going on in that state. He said he would submit it within 15 days.
When he did not, he was advised to stop practising in Goa. Only after submitting the NOC was he given registration and allowed to practise from May 21, 2024.
He admitted to practising without registration for more than ten months, for which the committee imposed a penalty of Rs 10,000 on him. Pinto submitted that as a result of the medical negligence, he had to undergo a repeat surgery at a hospital in Delhi.
The committee concluded that Pinto suffered a major complication as a result of the appendix surgery but exonerated the doctor and other doctors of medical negligence.
The committee also reprimanded the doctor for manipulating patient papers and stated that the words “fecoliths suctioned” were added as an afterthought and said that manipulating a patient’s papers is a serious offence.
Moreover, the committee said that no video recording of the surgery is available. “The availability of a video recording would have made the committee’s job simpler,” the committee stated. “Although it is not mandatory to have a video recording, it is always advisable to have video recordings of the laparoscopic surgeries.”