Cardiac hospital to compensate father

Chennai: A famous cardiac hospital in Chennai has been directed to pay a compensation of Rs 8.31 lakh to father of a son who died due to medical negligence. The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Chennai (North) Bench, comprising its president K. Jayabalan and member T. Kalaiyarasi, held that treating the patient with the banned drug “Nimulselide and giving excessive dosage of anesthesia proved that the surgery was done in the hospital in a negligent manner.

In the petition, M. Nagarajan, Motilal main road, Madurai submitted that his son Satishkumar, 24, was pursuing MBA course. He underwent pott’s shunt operation when he was a child at the government hospital, Chennai in 1980. In January 2004, he developed chest pain and consulted the hospital at Mogapair. After undergoing cardiac catherization and angiography procedure, he was discharged on May 6, 2004 with an advice to undergo complete repair with interruption of potts shunt. The hospital administered him “Nimulselide”, a drug banned in India.

Again Satishkumar was admitted in the hospital on May 16, 2004 and underwent intra cardiac repair and potts shunt the next day. While seeing him in the ICU, Nagarajan noticed his son in an unconscious state. Doctors informed him that his son had suffered a seizure a day after the surgery and Satishkumar continued to be in an unconscious state. The neurologist informed him that his son’s brain had been damaged.

On July 28, 2004, Satishkumar was discharged from the hospital and rushed to Madurai in an ambulance along with the staff nurses of the Mogappair hospital. He was admitted at M/s Jawahar Hospital, K. K. Nagar, Madurai on the same day.  He suffered for more than nine years and finally died on December 28, 2013.

Denying the allegations, the hospital replied that Satishkumar underwent a complicated surgery and he was discharged on 28.07.2004. The family took the decision to go ahead with a high-risk corrective surgery fully aware of the risk involved. The patient came out of the surgery in good hemodynamic condition. The hospital rejected the allegation of administering Nimuselide to him. They said  Satishkumar had a birth defect in his heart. The doctors cannot be attributed with negligence since they had done their very best to save the patient.

Hence, the hospital sought for dismissal of the complaint. The bench said in the discharge summary that the staff had noted administering nimuselide table to the patient and hence it is correct that doctors prescribed the banned drug to the patient.