Lack of timely emergency treatment: Tripura HC holds medical negligence, orders Rs 10 Lakh compensation
Tripura: Holding medical negligence on part of the doctors and the hospital for not providing timely medical care to an accident victim, the Tripura High Court has recently directed the State government to pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the mother of the deceased patient.
The case was concerning a patient, a young lawyer, who had met an accident and had died due to alleged delay in treatment and lack of proper investigation and trauma care.
The HC was hearing a public interest petition filed by a social activist who sought to project the inaction and alleged negligence on part of the doctors and hospital administration which according to him, led to the unfortunate premature death of a young promising lawyer who was the sole earner of his family.
The petitioner had also prayed for the formation of a special investigation team for investigating a complaint of the commission of an offence under Section 304 Part II read with Section 34 of IPC. A plea was then made by the mother of the deceased patient seeking directions from the Court to pay an interim compensation of Rs.50,00,000/- to her.
It was submitted that on 7th March 2020 the petitioner got information that the patient who was an advocate was brought to the hospital and he had died late at night. The petitioner, therefore, rushed to the hospital with access to the room where the dead body of the patient was kept. It was found that he still was wearing his full clothes with a belt and shoes on.
The petitioner alleged that despite the conscious condition of the patient and the availability of his phone no relatives were informed about the accident. It was pointed out that an FIR has been registered for the commission of an offence under Section 304 Part II IPC with the intervention of the Superintendent of Police, West Tripura. It was contended that the death of the advocate could have been avoided had the injured been given proper timely treatment.
A preliminary report was filed on 10th March 2020 by the audit team wherein it was concluded that he was conscious and had given the history himself of having consumed alcohol and there was no history of assault. Moreover, the report suggested that no investigations were advised at the Trauma centre and no specialist was called. No official call duty roster was available. There was a delay in initiating treatment right from the entry of the patient at the trauma centre till reaching the Medicine ward. The report also confirmed that though the doctor initiated the treatment after receiving the patient, he also did not examine systematically and did not take a second opinion from senior faculty. The patient's condition had deteriorated suddenly and the doctor claimed that he was busy reviving the patient and, therefore, could not call the specialist.
The cause of the death was shown to be shock and haemorrhage resulting from multiple injuries caused by impact of hard and blunt force. All the injuries were ante mortem.
The final report by the Audit Team dated 12th March 2020 had revealed that the deceased had a total of 17 injuries, both external and internal. The report stated, " After thoroughly scrutinizing and comparing the Postmortem report with the bed head ticket, all statements, especially statements of doctors concerned it is clear that on duty concerned doctors of Trauma Centre, Emergency and Medicine department did not examine and investigate the patient properly and therefore missed multiple grievous injuries that eventually caused the death."
The Government had also set up a Magisterial inquiry which was conducted by District Magistrate and Collector, West Tripura, Agartala and the magistrate recorded the statements of several witnesses and also relied on the Death Audit Report. His observations were that no physical examination was done systematically by all on-duty doctors. No investigation was advised at Trauma Care Centre, neither specialist call was initiated by the doctor concerned. His conclusions in this respect are as under :
"So, here considering all the facts and evidence, finding of Death Audit Report, Post Mortem Report and summarizing the gist of all statements, I Dr. Mahatme Sandeep N, IAS, Magistrate find medical negligence in providing standard care and treatment to that injured patient namely Bhaskar Deb Roy and such negligence leads to unfortunate death to Late***& I hold Dr. ***, on duty Doctor of Trauma Care Centre, Dr. ***, Dr. ***, EMOs at Emergency Block of AGMC & GBP Hospital as responsible for such Gross Medical Negligence which leads to death of patient***."
The observation was made that " this was a case of medical negligence which resulted into the death of a young advocate and which death, going by the experts' opinion, could have been avoided had proper timely investigations done and treatment given."
After considering the submissions, a bench consisting of Chief Justice Akil Kureshi and Justice SG Chattopadhyay observed that the Death Audit Report and Magisterial inquiry both point in one singular direction of gross medical negligence.
Whether it is a collective failure and a case of systemic negligence or whether some individuals should carry greater burden of medical negligence, the time will tell. Nevertheless, inescapable conclusions that one would arrive at on the basis of the materials on record is that this was a case of negligence in treating the injured patient which led to his death
The bench also took note of the fact that " the version of the petitioner when he had the access to the dead body of the young advocate, he was still wearing his full clothes with belt and shoes on which would indicate that the doctors did not even care to take a look at the full body of the patient."
This would be in consonance with the fact that the visible external injuries including the fractures do not even seem to have been noticed by the treating doctors. Serious internal injuries had to be detected through proper investigation. Reports of Xray, Sonography and ECG though called for, these investigations were not conducted. There was no senior doctor or specialist available or summoned. All in all, the official respondents must carry the vicarious civil liability for such wrongs committed."
The bench took the reference of various HC judgments and SC observation wherein the apex court had stated, "State or its officers, if the fundamental rights of a citizen are infringed then the liability of the State, its officials and instrumentalities, is strict. Claim raised for compensation in such a case is not a private law claim for damages, under which the damages recoverable are large. The claim made for compensation in public law is for compensating the claimants for deprivation of life and personal liberty which has nothing to do with a claim in a private law claim in tort in an ordinary civil court."
Thereafter, the court awarded a compensation of Rs.10,00,000/- to the mother of the deceased patient and stated, " in the present case, the facts speak for themselves. It is a clear case where we can invoke the well-known and oft-repeated maxim of Res Ipsa Loquitur."
The court observed
As per settled principles, in such a case for choosing the multiplier, the age of the deceased and not that of the mother would have to be taken into consideration. For personal expenditure 50% of the income would be set apart for the deceased leaving the rest 50% for the mother. Even going by the modest estimate of the income of a lawyer with 5 years standing at Rs.10,00,000/- and providing for future rise....
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