The Allahabad High Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to pay a compensation of ₹25 lakh to the family of a young lawyer who died at a government hospital in Prayagraj due to “gross medical negligence” while suffering from dengue.
Medical negligence
A Division Bench of Justices Pradeep Kumar Singh Baghel and Piyush Agrawal had on November 14 ruled that the death of lawyer Piyush Mishra in 2016 was caused due to “gross medical negligence as dengue was not diagnosed”.
The order was passed on a PIL registered on the basis of a letter sent to the court by the deceased’s father B.P. Mishra, an advocate himself. In his letter on November 4, 2016, Mr. Mishra had mentioned the “insensitivity” shown by the doctors at Swarup Rani Nehru Medical College in Prayagraj in not rendering medical assistance to his son, while drawing attention to the “casual approach” of the State functionaries towards the menace of dengue fever.
The patient died at the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, on October 30, 2016, and the cause of death was mentioned as “dengue shock syndrome ARDS”. He had been shifted to Lucknow after his condition became critical.
However, the SGPGI report noted that the diagnosis at SRN Medical College was wrong. While the patient was suffering from dengue, his condition was diagnosed by the Prayagraj facility as “fever with shock with thrombocytopenia with Multi Organ Dysfunction Syndrome”, the court noted. “...we are satisfied that death of Piyush Mishra was caused due to gross medical negligence as the patient was not provided any treatment for dengue. The deceased was not properly diagnosed and for the said reason, he died.”
