Eight years after botched surgery, this couple still awaits compensation

Victims of medical negligence not only have to go through the debilitating after-effects of botched up treatment but also struggle to get justice out of a tricky legal system. Part 2 of a Hindustan Times series on medical negligence in Delhi.

During a surgery for a broken hip joint, the doctors left a guide-wire inside the abdomen of Chander Kant, 63. It took five years for Chander and her husband Rohtar Singh, who is a labourer, to win a compensation order from the court. Over an year after that judgment, they are yet to receive any money.

Chander Kanta (right) and her husband Rohtar Singh outside the hospital with their documents. (Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)

“Instead of the week needed to fix a hip fracture, she ended up in the hospital for close to five months,” said Rohtar who has spent Rs 2 lakh on medicines and consumables. The wire, which is used to place the screws in the hip joint, had damaged Chander’s bladder, uterus, large intestine and colon.

Like Chander, for most victims of medical negligence, it is a difficult road to justice. The cases linger on even as the victims have to deal with the botched up medical procedure. Legal systems are tricky and negligence is hard to prove.

“Once a complaint is received, it is put before the executive committee. If there is merit in the complaint, another panel, including experts from the field that is under investigation, checks the complaint and collects proof like patient records, MRI and other scans,” says Dr Girish Tyagi, Delhi Medical Council.

A number of sufferers in such cases are poor and cannot afford a court fight. Chander, for example, lost bladder control after the surgery and was abandoned by her sons.

The Tis Hazari court held the doctors negligent and ordered Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital to pay Rs3 lakh as compensation. The court said if the amount was not paid within a month, the hospital will have to pay 6% interest. The hospital is yet to pay. “We appealed the decision in the high court,” said Dr Puneeta Mahajan, who then held the additional position of Medical Superintendant, DDU.

Rohtar says that after the surgery, Chander was in pain but got attention only after three days as it was a weekend and senior doctors were not around. An X-ray showed the guide-wire which was removed through a corrective surgery. By then, her perforated intestine had released bodily waste into the abdomen causing life-threatening sepsis.

Chander underwent a colostomy to create an alternate passage for faeces. “Now I’m told I need hip replacement, which costs up to Rs1.5 lakh. What do I do?” said Chander.

This story is part of a Hindustan Times series on medical negligence by Delhi hospitals. Follow us at @htTweets for updates.