Consumer is King » Medical

Family members of victims of medical negligence get compensation of Rs. 5 lakh

ashish — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:17:34 +0000

When people go to hospitals for treatment, they suffer from 2 major problems:
- They do not know what exactly the problem they have, and have to depend on the doctor for explaining to them what the problem is
- When undergoing surgery or other treatment, they are leaving their lives in the hands of the doctor and have no way to figure out whether things have gone right or not. It could be that that the doctor is very busy, or something may go wrong in the setup in the operation theatre, or the anesthetic used was not administered properly; in all such cases, they have to depend on the doctor and his team.
In the past, it used to be that in most of the cases, everything went fine, but in some of the cases where the result was not so good, the treatment was faulty in a smaller percentage of such cases (in some cases, the operation not turning out successful was something that could not be avoided, but in other cases, there were certain specific avoidable reasons that led to the operation not being successful). The patient and relatives had no way of figuring out whether something went right or not, or if they were being told the truth.
Nowadays, things are becoming easier for patients – they can get second opinions from other doctors about the advisability of medical treatments, and are also able to ensure that they can ask for compensation in cases where they feel that they have been wronged; consider this case (link to article):

The Delhi Consumer Commission has upheld a lower forum order, directing a city-based hospital and its doctor to pay Rs five lakh compensation to the family of a victim of medical negligence. The commission noted that the neck movement and blood pressure of the patient was found to be normal before the operation but developed complications soon after the surgery.
The appellants contended that the family members were told about the risk associated with the operation and there were no negligence on their part as she died due to cardiac arrest. The commission said that from the medical tests of the deceased before the operation, it was clear that the patient was not suffering from any heart-related disease.

Personal Finance – Loan insurance

ashish — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:15:01 +0000

Even though the trend of loan insurance is gaining in importance nowadays, there are a large number of people who are not aware of what loan insurance is, and why they should take loan insurance when they take a loan. So, what is loan insurance ?
Loan insurance is a safety valve you have when you have taken a loan. Consider the case where you have taken a home loan that is atleast 5-10 times your annual income. The plan is for you to continue your current job (or other means of making money) so that you can repay the EMI’s on a regular basis. But what happens if suddenly things take a bad turn ?
- You lose your job
- Or even more horribly, the person gets injured or loses their life
In all such cases, the burden of repaying the loan becomes huge, since the income stream could reduce or vanish. When that happens, the bank or financial institution will want to reclaim their loan or their asset, and the family members will be in a bad position. The asset against which the loan was given could be taken away, or something similar could happen.
So, there is a concept of loan insurance. It is an insurance policy to cover the repayment of the asset, with the amount equal to the amount of the asset. As the EMI’s are paid off for the loan, and the amount outstanding decreases, so does the amount payable from the insurance policy. So, when you have paid off the loan, the insurance policy also comes to an end, and there is no concept of money back. Many financial institutions, when they give a loan for an asset such as a property, also give an insurance policy to cover the loan, with a separate premium for this insurance policy. The amount of this premium depends on the risk that the financial institution needs to take, such as:
- Age of person taking the loan and their medical record
- Riskiness of job of the person
- Loan amount
- Tenure of the loan
From your side, when you take the insurance policy, you should check whether it covers you in case you lose your money earning ability, or suffer an injury or disability, or you die and your family has to take the loan. You will also need to check whether the insurance policy gives you a tax benefit, and whether you will need to have a medical check-up.

Apollo fined Rs. 5 lakh over a man’s death

ashish — Sat, 16 May 2009 20:20:02 +0000

Apollo Hospitals is one of the providers of premium medical care, charging top rates for their services and in turn providing excellent medical services. This is an expectation that people have when they are admitted to the hospital, so when the hospital screws up somewhere in this care and does harm to the patient, there is a lot of shock. And with an increasing tendency for people to file consumer forum issues when they believe that they have not been treated well, it is becoming more common for even the better hospitals to be pulled up when their services are found wanting (link to article):

The state consumer commission has directed Apollo Hospital to pay Rs 5 lakh compensation to the kin of a patient, who died in the hospital moments after he was brought in. In this case, 31-year-old Pradeep Kumar Saini, a father of two minor kids, was admitted in Apollo Hospital on June 16, 2003 in a drowsy state. After examination, it was found that he had no medical history and his condition was stable. In fact, the family was told that he was to be discharged shortly. At no stage was it indicated that the condition of the patient was deteriorating.
Presiding over the commission, Justice JD Kapoor said that Apollo Hospital was guilty of negligence and deficiency in service for keeping the patient unattended for few hours and not making doctors available for immediate treatment.

This is not a state run hospital where patients sometimes have to wait for doctors to attend to them because of a lot of rush; premium hospitals are supposed to provide the required medical attention as and when required, and their reputations are based on these.

Supreme Court awards Rs. 1 crore damages for medical negligence

ashish — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:46:28 +0000

Medical negligence is something that is penalized the world over. When a patient goes in for a medical procedure, the person is entrusting their lives to the doctor (s) attending on them. It used to be said earlier that a Doctor is a very respected person, and that it would be unfair to penalize a doctor for some problem that occurs during a medical procedure; this is now countered by the argument that modern hospitals and the medical industry charges market rates for their procedures, and hence are not doing any favors to patients. Further, how do you compensate a patient for a case when the hospital has goofed up or indulged in medical malpractise ? Consider this case where a bright IT person was paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair after a medical procedure (link to article):

In the highest compensation ordered by an Indian court in a medical negligence case, a techie who found himself paralyzed waist down after a surgeon damaged his spinal chord during an operation to remove a tumour in the chest, was awarded Rs 1 crore in damages by the Supreme Court on Thursday. The victim, Prashant S Dhananka, 39, who spiritedly argued his case from a wheelchair he has been confined to since the operation 19 years ago, had sought a compensation of Rs 7 crore.
Dhananka, a senior manager with Infosys earning Rs 1.5 lakh a month and residing in Bangalore, gave vivid details of the gross negligence he suffered at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), Hyderabad, and demonstrated the inadequacy of the compensation awarded by the high court. NIMS, a semi-government set up, is rated as one of the premier hospitals in the country. While increasing the compensation to Rs 1 crore, the bench comprising Justices B N Agrawal, H S Bedi and G S Singhvi showed both its disgust at blatant attempts by NIMS to wriggle out of its responsibility for the victim’s condition and acknowledged the need to provide for the huge medical expenses that Dhananka has had to incur every month since 1990.

It was only some years ago that the Supreme Court had almost refused to penalize the medical fraternity for mistakes made; even now the Court expresses worry at the increasing tendency of bringing medical cases into the legal system, yet there is a necessity to do this, as the Court itself acknowledges – when the institution makes blatant mistakes and then tries to cover up, there is no other option than to order the required punishment.