Apollo hospital to pay 5 lakh to victim’s family for negligence

Hyderabad: The Telangana State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (TSCDRC) directed Apollo Hospital in Jubilee Hills on, November 3 to pay Rs 5 lakh to the family of a victim who died as a result of the hospital staff’s medical negligence.

The order comes after the family of the victim filed a complaint with the TSCDRC following the victim’s death on March 9, 2011, which was within 20 hours of her knee replacement surgery. The family alleged that despite the patient’s history of asthma, hypertension, diverticulosis, and hiatus hernia, she was not shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for post-surgery observation.

Although the hospital denied the allegations by the family saying that post-surgery care was given to the patient, the commission found the hospital guilty of repeated medical negligence.

Asthma patients are delicate after surgeries and it is essential that they are kept under vigilant observation but it was observed that post-surgery no surgeon visited the patient to check up on her reports even though the patient showed symptoms that required immediate attention.

The hospital reportedly tried to cover up their act by “embalming” the body without the permission of the family, so as to alter reports of the post mortem. The reason for the death of the patient was falsely concluded as “acute cardio-respiratory failure in a patient suffering from Hypertensive Heart Disease,” although the pre-operative evaluation reflected that the person had no medical history of cardiac symptoms.

“The knee replacement surgery in itself is not a life-threatening procedure and had reasonable precautions been taken, the ensuing complications could have been avoided and averted,” said the Court.

“The care was given entirely by the hospital staff comprising mainly of the nurses and duty doctor. They should have monitored the patient closely and especially after she vomited. Prompt care and attention was certainly lacking and the sequence of events is clearly indicative of negligence,” the order concluded.