Hyderabad: Hyderabad District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-3 in its judgement of October 27, 2016, ordered the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences director (not named) and its surgeon, Dr R.A. Sastry, professor and head of the department of surgical gastrology, to pay Rs 5.63 lakh towards compensation, surgery cost and litigation costs, to a patient A. Mallikamba.
The forum found Nims guilty of medical negligence, which had led to the development of a tumour and formation of pus in the patient’s abdomen.
According to the complaint filed in the Consumer Forum, Ms Mallikamba of Mogilicherla in Geesukonda mandal of Warangal district, was suffering from abdominal pain and consulted doctors at Nims. She was advised to get operated for cystic lesion of the pancreas. Dr Sastry operated on her on November 3, 2009. She was discharged a week later.
Two years later she began suffering from unbearable abdominal pain and consulted Sakhamuri Narayana Memorial Nursing Home in Warangal, in May 2012. Investigations showed a tumour-like object in her abdomen which needed to be surgically removed. In the course of the operation, doctors retrieved the surgical mop (gauze swab) left behind during her previous surgery, which had caused the tumour and which needed to be removed. The patient alleged that she has been suffering continuous pain and hardships as a consequence of the negligence of the Nims doctors.
In the written reply, respondent doctors said that the complainant required a complicated operation called Pancreatico-duodenectomy (Whipple’s operation) because of the location of the mass along with compression of the vital structures. Nims said that it has carried out 25,000 major operations, and the present complaint was the first it has received in the last 27 years. It said that at the end of any operation, all the disposables and non-disposables, including surgical mops and instruments that are used during the course of the operation are accounted for and recorded. NIMS submitted that there was no negligence on the part of the treating doctors at any stage.
