This the maximum compensation that the apex court has ever ordered in a case relating to medical negligence.
A bench of justices S J Mukhopadhaya and V Gopala Gowda asked the hospital and three doctors to pay the amount within eight weeks to Kunal Saha, also a doctor based in Ohio. Saha’s wife, Anuradha, had come to Kolkata in March 1998 on a summer vacation. She complained of skin rashes on April 25 and consulted Dr Sukumar Mukherjee, who, without prescribing any medicine, simply asked her to take rest.
As rashes reappeared more aggressively on May 7, 1998, Mukherjee prescribed Depomedrol injection 80 mg twice daily, a step which was later faulted by experts at the apex court.
After administration of the injection, Anuradha’s condition deteriorated rapidly following which she had to be admitted at AMRI on May 11 under Mukherjee's supervision.
Following his wife’s death, Kunal launched his fight against medical negligence. He later formed People for Better Treatment (PBT) to make his crusade into a mass movement and filed cases against three doctors and the AMRI hospital, where Anuradha was treated before being shifted to the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai, where she died from the TEN (Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis) syndrome.
In 2009, the SC found the AMRI hospital guilty of medical negligence and referred the case to the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC), which had fixed the compensation amount to Rs. 1.7 crore.
The NCDRC asked three Kolkata doctors and the AMRI to share the compensation amount.
The deceased’s husband, however, claimed that the compensation amount, along with interest since 1998, should be Rs. 200 crore and moved the SC.
On Thursday, the apex court decided on his plea and enhanced the compensation to Rs. 5.96 crore.
The court said out of the total compensation amount, Dr Balram Prasad and Dr Sukumar Mukherjee will pay Rs. 10 lakh each and Dr Baidyanath Halder will have to pay Rs. 5 lakh to Saha within eight weeks.
The rest of the amount, along with the interest, will be paid by the hospital, the apex court said, adding that a compliance report be filed before it after the payment of the compensation amount.
Reacting to the SC order, Mukherjee said: "The national consumer forum had ordered me to pay a compensation of Rs. 40.40 lakh to Dr Kunal Saha. So I have got a big relief from the apex court. The supreme court in its own wisdom has given such relief.”
Representatives of AMRI Hospital, however, refused to comment. "We have not yet received the copy of the order. As and when we do, we would comment," said a representative of the Emami Group that runs the AMRI Hospital now.
Saha got the Supreme Court court order after a long and seemingly impossible legal battle for more than a decade-and-a-half.
Before this, the Supreme Court had ordered a record Rs. 1 crore compensation to be paid to a Bangalore-based software engineer, Prashant Dhananka.
Dhananka was a final year engineering student in 1990, all of 21 years, when he went in for a regular chest biopsy at Hyderabad's Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS). He came out paralysed waist downwards.
The National Consumer Commission awarded him Rs. 15 lakh as compensation in 1993. The software engineer challenged it in the Supreme Court, demanding that he should be paid Rs. 7 crore.
After the landmark judgement announcing the highest ever compensation awarded in a medical negligence case, TOI spoke to Dr Kunal Saha
Are you satisfied with the judgement?
Of course I am happy. This is the end of a long personal battle. The court has awarded a compensation of Rs 5.9 crore with a 6% interest that will have to be paid from 1999 when I had filed the case. So, the total amount comes to around Rs 11 crore. But it was not about money. I had carried on this long struggle to change the prevailing system in India which treats patients like guinea-pigs. It was important to ensure that the compensation was hefty. This will force hospitals and doctors to be careful and act as a deterrent. This is why I had sought Rs 77 crore as compensation.
How significant is the judgement?
It's a landmark judgement for this is the first time that doctors and a hospital have been asked to pay such a big amount. There have been cases in the past where doctors had to shell out Rs 1 lakh-Rs 2 lakh as compensation which can't make any difference. It's less than the price of a secondhand car and doctors didn't really worry about paying such sums. So, those compensations were never a deterrent. But this judgment is a strong warning to them. It will help curb reckless use of medicines and wrong treatment.
You have launched a platform to help victims of medical negligence. How far is this judgment going to help that cause?
This is indeed a shot in the arm for the movement against medical negligence in India. I had launched People for Better Treatment to help others like me. Over the last several years, we have taken up numerous cases of medical negligence. My personal battle might have ended, but I shall continue to fight for other victims. In fact, this judgment should encourage all those fighting such cases. At least, they shall no longer be receiving a fraction of the amount they spend on fighting the cases.
Life can't be compensated with money. But at least the victim's family needs an assurance they would get the money back once they win the case. This is why majority of those who file cases of negligence give up after 4-5 years.
Why are cases of negligence proliferating in Kolkata?
It is the leniency shown to guilty doctors which is squarely responsible for this. One doctor who has been held guilty for my wife Anuradha's death is an advisor to the health ministry in Bengal. I have filed a petition against this in SC and have written to CM Mamata Banerjee. The Medical Council of India cancelled his licence in 2011, but the state medical council has been defending him. The matter is now pending in the High Court. Most doctors are good. We only need to identify and expel the few rotten eggs.
Finally, did the fact that you are a doctor help you persist with the battle?
Being a doctor made a difference, I could make out they had been negligent. We need to have a system in which there will be a provision for investigation and penalty against doctors accused of negligence. There has to be a protocol and victims' families shouldn't be left to fight their own battle. The PBT will fight to change the system.
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