A Himachal Pradesh District Consumer Commission has ordered a hospital and two doctors to pay a compensation amount of 5.12 lakh after a person filed a case against the hospital because a medical sponge was left inside his left abdomen during a gallbladder surgery in 2019.
After a year of his surgery, he developed sudden pain in his abdomen and had to go through a surgery to take the sponge out. The commission has also awarded him Rs. 15,000 as litigation costs.
According to the reports, President Hemanshu Mishra and member Narayan Thakur agreed that the man had to bear extra medical charges and transportation costs on his own. However, they did not agree about his complaint about loss of salary due to his absence from work.
The September 24, order stated, “Under the well-established doctrine of Res Ipsa Loquitur (“the thing speaks for itself”), the presence of a retained surgical sponge (Gossypiboma) per se constitutes gross negligence, as no complex expert testimony is required to prove that leaving foreign material inside a patient’s body falls far below the standard of a reasonably competent medical practitioner.”
“The loss on account of the absence of the complainant from duty as he remained without pay/salary has been exaggerated. During the COVID-19 pandemic when there was a partial lockdown throughout India, the assertion of the complainant that he remained without salary is not supported by any document,” the order added.
On July 29, 2019, the man was admitted to a hospital in Himachal Pradesh due to acute stomach pain. He was diagnosed with gallbladder stones and had to undergo a surgical procedure to remove the gallbladder and was discharged on August 23, 2019.
In September 2020, a year after his surgery, the man experienced extreme abdominal pain and had to be admitted to a hospital again. After a few tests, an object of 8*8 cm was found in his abdomen. During an ultrasound, the doctors suspected the object to be a cotton swab or gossypiboma.
On October 1, 2020, he underwent corrective surgery and the medical sponge was removed from his body.
The man then alleged gross medical negligence for leaving medical surgery equipment inside his body during the initial surgery in 2019. He asked for Rs 6.5 lakh to cover his financial losses, Rs 3 lakh for the physical and mental stress he endured, and Rs 20,000 for his legal fees.
However, the doctor did not file their reply within 45 days, so their right to reply was cancelled.
The hospital’s insurance company, Oriental Insurance, argued that the hospital’s policy had already expired, so they are not responsible for paying for this incident. The hospital’s policy expired on March 4, 2020, and they did not inform the insurance company about the case until December 20, 2022, which was too late.
The hospital renewed its insurance with National Insurance in March 2021, so they were also not responsible for the payment as the incident happened before their coverage started.
Therefore, the Consumer Commission ruled against the doctors directly and ordered them to pay compensation of 5.12 lakh with 9 per cent annual interest and Rs 15,000 to cover the patient’s legal expenses.
(Rh/ARC)
