‘Totally wrong, illegal line of treatment’: Safdarjung Hospital asked to pay Rs 25 lakh to patient’s widow
Earlier, a state consumer commission had granted Asha Goyal, the wife of the deceased, Rs 25 lakh noting that it was “shocking” that the injection wasn't available in a “big hospital like Safdarjung”.
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The man had died during treatment in 2017.Noting that the hospital had adopted a “totally wrong and illegal line of medical treatment”, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) recently directed Safdarjung Hospital to pay over 25 lakh in compensation to the wife of a man, suffering from a lower respiratory tract infection, leaking heart valves and left ventricular failure, who died at the hospital during treatment in 2017.
In doing so, the national commission upheld an order of a state commission directing the hospital to provide the same amount to the woman.
The NCDRC, in its order on April 12, noted that the standard medical protocol required administering an “essential” injection called Nirmin, which was not available at the hospital, and that there was no evidence that the alternative Albumin injection given to the patient was the right injection.
Nirmin is a drug which is used to treat heart failures, among many other things.
Earlier, a state consumer commission had granted Asha Goyal, the wife of the deceased, Rs 25 lakh noting that it was “shocking” that the injection wasn’t available in a “big hospital like Safdarjung”.
Goyal also submitted that her husband was administered Albumin injection without informing the attendant or other family members.
“It is shocking that injection Nirmin was not available in a big hospital like Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi. There is no reason why said injection was not available in the hospital. There is nothing to show that since when the said injection was not available in the hospital and what
efforts were done by the hospital to procure that injection,” the state consumer commission had earlier noted.
The hospital then moved the national consumers’ body, challenging the state commission’s order on the grounds that it had failed to obtain an independent expert opinion in the absence of any proof to establish that the treatment provided to the patient was contrary to the medical protocol.
The hospital also submitted that the patient’s heart was working at only 1/6th capacity and that only half of the patients with his condition survived for over five years, with cardiac deaths being “very common” among them.
Siding with the complainant, the national commission held that the hospital had adopted a “totally wrong and illegal line of medical treatment”.
The commission also noted that no details of tests of the deceased patient were brought on record to prove that he was suffering from multiple medical issues as alleged by the hospital.
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