SHRC orders compensation for victim of medical negligence

A woman who suffered for nearly two decades after a surgical instrument was left in her stomach after operation has now got some relief with the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) directing the Tamil Nadu government to consider paying her Rs.25,000 on compassionate grounds, within three months.

Terming it a “very unfortunate case” where a woman suffered for 19 years for no fault of hers, Commission Chairperson A.S.Venkatachalamoorthy said the government should take a sympathetic view of her case.

The Commission took

suo motu cognisance of a report in a Tamil weekly in July 2008 which said the doctor who performed the family planning operation on her at the Government Hospital, Coimbatore, in 1989 closed the wound by leaving a pair of scissors in her stomach. The report said after the surgery, she had pain in the lower abdomen and the doctor had said that the pain would be there for some time and prescribed medicines. She suffered pain now and then and she consulted several doctors. Ultimately, on medical advice, she took an X-ray and a scan.

The scan revealed a forceps inside the stomach. The instrument was removed in July 2008.

The SHRC's investigation wing submitted a report that there was rights violation and gross negligence by doctors who performed the operation on September 14, 1989.

The Commission conducted an enquiry and called for the doctors' statements. Dr.A.Mathivanan, Medical Superintendent, Coimbatore Medical College Hospital, in his statement said the case sheets would be maintained and preserved only for three years. Mrs.Nandhini's case sheet could not be traced.

Mr.Justice Venkatachalmoorthy said in the absence of any record, after a lapse of nearly 20 years, it would be rather difficult to accept the case in its entirety and fix the responsibility on anyone based only on the statements of Mrs.Nandhini and her husband, B.Mohanrajan, to hold there was rights violation.