2 doctors approach national forum after Gujarat consumer disputes body says negligence led to patient’s death

The commission had ordered them to jointly pay a sum of Rs 33.7 lakh along with a 10 per cent interest from the date of complaint to the husband of the deceased patient who had filed the complaint against the doctors in September 2015.

A 43-year-old woman was diagnosed with a tumour in her uterus in December 2014 and a laparoscopic myomectomy was recommended. While in surgery, the patient’s condition deteriorated and she died soon after due to cardiorespiratory failure on account of surgery and its complications.

Advocate Nimit Shukla, representing the doctors before the appellate authority, said the appeal will now be heard on merits.

The doctors in their appeal have submitted that the state commission erred in holding them guilty of medical negligence and had passed the order “only on sympathy grounds”. It was also submitted that the state commission is not an expert in the field of medical science and ought to have appointed a committee of medical experts to assist the commission in forming an opinion, and had such a committee been appointed, the doctors would not have been held guilty of medical negligence.

The appellants have additionally submitted that the state commission failed to appreciate that “a complication by itself does not constitute negligence”, that there’s a “big difference between an adverse or untoward event and negligence”, and that there’s a “growing tendency to accuse the doctor of an adverse or untoward event”. The appeal added, “A medical professional cannot be held liable simply because things went wrong from mischance or misfortune.”

The appeal has also relied on medical literature that suggests that there is risk associated with laparoscopic surgery and acute pulmonary edema after carbon dioxide embolism during Laparoscopic Ovarian Cystectomy as was the case with the deceased patient, leading to her demise.