15% of negligence cases in West Bengal filed by doctors

KOLKATA: A significant chunk of complaints of medical negligence filed with the state consumer affairs department come from fellow doctors. Consumer department officials estimate that 10%-15% of the 641 medical-negligence cases filed between 2011 and 2015 have been filed by medical practitioners, whose kin have allegedly suffered at the hands of doctors.
Dr Durgadas Bhattacharya quit a private hospital after he was charged nearly twice the package rate for a gall bladder surgery that he underwent there.“I had opted for a package of Rs 22,000 but was billed Rs 40,000. The hospital authorities did not even clarify why they were charging me double the amount, I quit in protest,“ said Bhattacharya, a medicine consultant in Thakurpukur.
The physician also alleged medical negligence against a heart hospital in Alipore where his father, Debnarayan, died in 2009. “My father was admitted to the hospital, but it did not have dialysis facility .When he had to undergo a dialysis, we shifted him to a nursing home near Tollygunge Phanri but retained the blood that we had deposited at the hospital bank since the nursing home did not have a blood freezer. When blood was required, the hospital refused to hand it over citing that I had no t claims on the blood in their facility since my father was no longer a patient there. Suffe ring from low haemoglobin, t he needed immediate transfusion. But we were unable to do anything because the hospital wouldn't budge. Ultimately he turned critical and died,“ he recounted.Bhattacharya lodged a complaint with the West Bengal Medical Council (WBMC) but the ethical committee tur. ned down the plea and even snubbed him for lodging the complaint. He then moved the e state consumer forum that is expected to deliver its judge ment later this month. “Only doctors can detect medical negligence. It is very difficult for a non-medical practitioner to understand where things went wrong,“ he felt.
Dr Kalyani Das Sarkar lodged a similar complaint with WBMC against a leading hospital on EM Bypass and two of its doctors for causing her husband Ashok Kumar Das's death. Then holding the position of president at the Institute of Engineers, Ashok was admitted to the hospital on February 29, 2016, for angioplasty after he complained of discomfort in the chest. “He walked into the cath lab on March 1, 2016, but never came out. He died mysteriously . I strongly suspect negligence. Worse, even after his death, the cardiologist requisitioned for blood,“ said Sarkar who has claimed compensation of Rs 10 crore at the consumer forum. ENT specialist Dr Manik Khan lost her only daugh ter Sanchita, an engineer, on November 1, 2015. He is certain the death was due to the negligence of a doctor at the nursing home in Chandannnagore. “Even when she was encountering respiratory problems and her haemoglobin count had dipped to 6.5, the doctor did not put her on ventilation and conduct necessary blood tests. She died without treatment,“ said Khan.
Dr Prabhat Mukherjee blames another hospital on the Bypass for his son Sumanta's death. An engineering student, Sumanta had met with an accident. A passerby took him to the hospital but it refused treatment because the person could not deposit Rs 15,000 that the hospital wanted to start treatment. The National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) ruled against the hospital and awarded Mukhejee a compensation of Rs 10 lakh -scant consolation for a son lost son but a penalty against the hospital nevertheless.
Dr Tripti Das, who lost her brother Dr Sujit Kumar Das in April 2011, said doctors at two north Kolkata nursing homes did not conduct a CT scan for eight hours. Sujit Kumar, a dermatologist who had served as consultant to the Supreme Court in the Bhopal gas trage dy , had suffered a head injury .But doctors just didn't react.“Now my son. Dr Gairik Ghosh, an orthopedic surgeon, is pleading the case in the state consumer forum as he can narrate and argue the medical details better than any advocate,“ she said.
Consumer law expert Prabir Basu acknowledged medical cases posed a challenge as it was difficult for lawyers to prove negligence. “ A case has to contain views of medical experts along with the omission and what should have been done to protect life. Relevant medical literature needs to be enclosing alongwith the case file to buttress the point. That isn't easy ,“ he said.
Very often, hospitals move the NCDRC in Delhi, appealing against state forum or ders. Once the case goes there, most patients are unable to pursue it as it entails both money and time, said senior advocate Subroto Mookerji.
Dr Kunal Saha who fought from 1998 till 2013, when Supreme Court finally ruled that his wife Anuradha had died due to medical negligence, said it was impossible to stop medical negligence unless doctors become conscientious.
There are odd cases against government hospitals too.But these are few and far between, perhaps because the patients are too poor to fight a legal battle after the loss of a dear one.