Private hospital in TN told to pay Rs 3 lakh compensation to woman over medical negligence
MADURAI: The Madurai district consumer disputes redressal forum recently directed a private hospital in Madurai to pay Rs 3 lakh compensation to a woman, allegedly over medical negligence during her hernia surgery in 2022.
In her petition, S Mahadevi stated that she suffered severe abdominal pain on December 31, 2021, and was diagnosed with ventral hernia (a protrusion in the front abdominal muscles). She underwent a surgery at the said hospital the next day, at a cost of Rs 36,857. While she was scheduled to be discharged on January 4, 2021, she complained of fluid discharge and pain in the surgical wound area, but was told by the doctors that it would heal in two days. Even after she returned to the hospital complaining of pain and pus from the wound, the petition added, she was administered some medicine and an injection with the promise that the wound would heal in the next two days.
Following the persistence of pain, Mahadevi approached another hospital, in March 2022, where she was informed that the surgical wound was not stitched properly, she said. She underwent treatment at the said hospital for three days. Blaming the first hospital for its negligence during the surgery, which caused her physical and mental agony, and an additional expense of Rs 2 lakh, Mahadevi moved the Madurai consumer forum and sought Rs 5 lakh compensation from the hospital.
When forum president M Piraviperumal and member P Shanmugapriya heard the case, Mahadevi's counsel M Karthick argued that had she been given proper post-operative care, the surgical wound would have healed earlier. Hearing both sides, the forum held the hospital liable and directed it to pay Rs 3 lakh as compensation to Mahadevi, along with Rs 10,000 complaint cost, within 45 days.