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Death by medical negligence: HC refuses to quash summoning order against Mohali hospital, doc
The high court observed that there was ample proof to hold that the petitioners should face the prosecution
Chandigarh The Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed a plea from a private hospital from Mohali and a senior doctor, against the summoning order to face trial in an alleged case of medical negligence reported in 2013.
The bench of justice Deepak Gupta, upheld the trial court order of summoning the accused observing that “more than a case of gross medical negligence, it is a case of cheating committed by the petitioners in conspiracy with each other”.
The plea was from Max Super Speciality Hospital, Mohali and a senior medical consultant of the hospital summoned by a Mohali court to face trial for which an order was passed on June 10, 2014. The trial court had acted on the complaint of one Pooja Gupta, who had alleged that her husband died in 2013 due to medical negligence.
She had alleged that her husband was prescribed a surgery for implantation of Bi-Vent Triple Chamber Pacemaker having three leads for which over ₹5 lakh was deposited. But the doctor initiated the surgery without having the prescribed pacemaker and implanted a different pacemaker. The surgery did not go as planned and subsequently he died, she had submitted before the Mohali court.
The hospital and the doctor in question had maintained that the hospital authorities had taken all the precautions and preventions as required in the circumstances. Petitioners were having all the requisite components for implantation including the biventricular pacemaker. The entire implantation was carried out perfectly; that patient withstood the procedure well in two stages, they had submitted adding that he was brought dead on September 27, 2013 and on examination, it was found he had died because of the sudden cardiac death and that pacemakers do not prevent deaths from fresh and sudden attacks.
The high court, however, dismissed their plea and observed that there was ample proof to hold that the petitioners should face the prosecution. “The hospital record, as placed on record prima facie demonstrates sufficient material to proceed with the complaint against the petitioners, even in the absence of any opinion of the medical expert,” it said.
