Medical negligence: HC asks govt hospital to conduct operation

Passing an interim order in a case of medical negligence, the Madras High Court has directed doctors of a government-run hospital to immediately operate on a woman and remove broken pieces of forceps left inside her abdomen after she was operated at the hospital in 1989.
In his order, Justice Kirubakaran said the woman should be immediately operated for removal of the foreign particles while compensation and other issues could be decided later.
Petitioner P Arumugam submitted that the doctors had operated on his wife at Rajaji Hospital for removal of retroperitoneal hydatid cyst on October 11, 1989.
The pain, however, did not subside even after the operation. Though the woman visited the hospital for medical checkups, the doctors there merely prescribed her tablets. In the meanwhile, the couple approached a private doctor as the pain became unbearable for the woman.

It was then that a scan revealed broken surgical forceps in the RIF region with severe adhesions, foreign body reaction and clumping of bowel loops. The doctors at the government hospital had failed to detect it though they had done an operation earlier.
The case was of medical negligence on the part of the hospital doctors, the petitioner said.
Besides borrowing money, the petitioner said, he had spent all his earnings and sold jewellery for bearing the medical expenses.
"The State Health and Home secretaries are bound to pay the compensation for sufferings due to the negligence. There is also an urgent need to remove the foreign particles," the petitioner said in his petition.