Hyderabad: The AP State Consumer Redressal Commission has directed Care Hospital and its ancillary Pinnamaneni Care Hospital (Quality Care India Ltd) at Vijayawada to pay Rs 5.76 lakh to a 20-year-old patient for rendering “deficient service”.
A three-member bench was disposing an appeal by the hospitals challenging an order passed by the Krishna District Consumer Forum directing the hospital management to refund Rs 30,000 towards amputation charges with interest of nine per cent p.a. from September 15, 2008, till the date of payment and to also pay a compensation of Rs 8 lakh with interest from July 29, 2009, on which date the complainant had moved the forum. The district forum directed the management to pay Rs 3,000 as costs.
Consumer Guidance Society of Vijayawada, on behalf of the patient, had moved the district forum alleging that the hospital management had failed to provide proper post-operative care to the patient after implanting a pacemaker, which had led to the amputation of his right leg.
The forum found that the patient had been kept in the hospital as an in-patient as advised by the doctor for better management. During the stay, he developed Thrombo Embotolic Pneumonia of the right leg (esc-hemia), which doctors said warranted immediate amputation above the knee and issued two discharge summaries while he was undergoing treatment as an in-patient. He was discharged only after the amputation.
The forum also found that the doctor who was supposed to take care of the patient had gone abroad and the hospital should have taken another expert’s services.
The forum observed there was no dispute that the right leg had been amputated and that he had been charged Rs 34,100 in addition to medical and other costs. Similarly, there was no dispute that the patient was non-diabetic. So the possibility that gangrene had formed leading to amputation was ruled out.
The Commission reduced the relief from Rs 8 lakh to Rs 5.76 lakh due to non-availability of dependable evidence with regard to the complainant’s income.
