Health Bulletin 16/ January/ 2025

The Madurai bench of Madras High Court recently directed the State Government to pay Rs 5 lakh compensation to a patient for medical negligence by causing delay in treatment. The patient had undergone a hysterectomy at the treating hospital, however, when she felt pain in her right leg during recovery from anaesthesia, it was amputated.

Even though the HC bench held that there was no medical negligence on the part of the doctors at Virudhunagar District Head Quarters Government Hospital, where the patient was treated, it noted that there was no specialist doctor and the post of radiologist was also vacant. Therefore, when the patient felt intolerable pain in her right leg after the surgery, the hospital failed to look into the pain and even failed to advise her to go for higher treatment.

Granting full medical reimbursement to a patient, who underwent liver transplant surgery, the Punjab and Haryana High Court ruled that in life-or-death emergencies, it does not matter for medical reimbursement purposes whether a hospital is approved or not.

With this observation, the HC bench comprising Justice Jasgurpreet Singh held that the petitioner was entitled to the "balance amount of 10 lakh". The High Court was considering the question of whether the petitioner, who underwent liver transplant surgery at a Chennai-based hospital in an emergency condition, was entitled to full medical reimbursement even though the healthcare institute was "unapproved".

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The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently directed the Central Government and the State Government authorities not to compel postgraduate medical aspirants to resign from the All India 2nd Round counselling of the National Eligibility-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) and forfeit the security deposit until the state declares the results of the 2nd round of counselling.

While considering the plea by the NEET PG aspirants in this regard, the HC Division bench of Justices Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Anuradha Shukla issued directions in this regard to the Union of India, Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) through Directorate General of Health Services, State Government through Principal Secretary Department of Forest, Director of Medical Education and the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS).

After West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ordered a CID investigation into the expired saline death case, senior officials of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) recently interrogated seven doctors and four nurses who were on duty at the gynaecology department of Midnapore Medical College and Hospital (MMCH) where a woman died and three others fell critically ill after childbirth, following the administration of alleged expired intravenous fluid.

The seven doctors quizzed on Tuesday included two senior gynaecologists, the head of the gynaecology department, a Resident Medical Officer (RMO), two postgraduate trainees, and the hospital superintendent.