CASE OF MARGESH K. PARIKH (MINOR) Vs. DR. MAYUR S. MEHTA ( As published in UP Nursing Home quarterly News letter) By Manish Mehrotra, Advocate.

The above decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court on Medical Negligence reported in (2011) 1 SCC 31; is an important case on which the present article is based. It is a case where the patient ( a minor) was admitted in the hospital with complaint of loose motions. After some laboratory tests the doctor put him on medication and injected Glucose Saline through his right shoulder. This did not improve the condition of the minor child and who started vomiting and having loose motions more frequently. In the evening the parents of the minor patient noticed swelling in the toe of his left foot which was turning black and accordingly child was sent to one Dr. “C” who carried a small procedure and administered certain medicine. Unfortunately later the child developed gangrene and ultimately his left leg was amputated below knee. The patient’s guardian filed a case of compensation for Rs. 10 Lac. The State Consumer Commission did not accept the plea of the doctor and awarded a compensation of Rs. 5 Lacs against the doctors with interest thereupon. However, during the case proceedings the State Consumer Commission noticed that the doctor had withheld the medical records / case papers for six long years and also did not file any affidavit before it of the treating doctor. The National Consumer Commission on appeal by the treating doctors set aside the order of the State Commission holding the doctor not guilty of medical negligence. However, keeping in view the detailed findings of the State Commission the Hon’ble Supreme Court allowed the patient’s appeal and set aside the decision of the National Consumer Commission while remanding it back and held as under:- i) The conduct of the doctors in not producing case sheet within time and deferring it for six long years could not be ignored by the National Consumer Commission and has been pleased to observe that the National Commission was duty bound to pay serious attention on the doctor’s failure to produce the case papers for six long years and call upon him to explain why the record pertaining to the treatment given to the appellant was held back for so long. ii) The case papers / bed tickets maintained by the hospital would have disclosed the line of treatment. iii) Equally intriguing was the hospital’s failure to file the Affidavit of the treating doctor and such types of lacuna can not be ignored by the courts. iv) These omissions on the part of National Commission are extremely serious and have resulted in failure of justice (Refer paragraph – 13 of the judgement). In view of the above important decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court; as I have always emphasised during my talks in the UPNHA conferences that transparent hospital records must be maintained by the hospital / doctors and should be produced in court at the first available opportunity to give a clear picture of the details on diagnosis and treatment administered to the patient.