DOCTORS BE AWARE OF YOUR RIGHTS.
KNOW THE 11 POINTER AND MAKE OTHERS AWARE ABOUT IT BY SHARING IT!!!!
The Apex Court in its landmark judgment of Kusum Sharma V/s. Batra Hospital, has laid down the following guidelines while dealing the cases of medical Negligence!!
“On scrutiny of the leading cases of medical negligence both in our country and other countries especially United Kingdom, some basic principles emerge in dealing with the cases of medical negligence. While deciding whether the medical professional is guilty of medical negligence following well known principles must be kept in view:-
1.Negligence is the breach of a duty exercised by omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided by those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do.
2.Negligence is an essential ingredient of the offence. The negligence to be established by the prosecution must be culpable or gross and not the negligence merely based upon an error of judgment.
3.The medical professional is expected to bring a reasonable degree of skill and knowledge and must exercise a reasonable degree of care. Neither the very highest nor a very low degree of care and competence judged in the light of the particular circumstances of each case is what the law requires.
4.A medical practitioner would be liable only where his conduct fell below that of the standards of a reasonably competent practitioner in his field.
5.In the realm of diagnosis and treatment there is scope for genuine difference of opinion and one professional doctor is clearly not negligent merely because his conclusion differs from that of other professional doctor.
6.The medical professional is often called upon to adopt a procedure which involves higher element of risk, but which he honestly believes as providing greater chances of success for the patient rather than a procedure involving lesser risk but higher chances of failure. Just because a professional looking to the gravity of illness has taken higher element of risk to redeem the patient out of his/her suffering which did not yield the desired result may not amount to negligence.
7.Negligence cannot be attributed to a doctor so long as he performs his duties with reasonable skill and competence. Merely because the doctor chooses one course of action in preference to the other one available, he would not be liable if the course of action chosen by him was acceptable to the medical profession.
8.It would not be conducive to the efficiency of the medical profession if no Doctor could administer medicine without a halter round his neck.
9.It is our bounden duty and obligation of the civil society to ensure that the medical professionals are not unnecessary harassed or humiliated so that they can perform their professional duties without fear and apprehension.
10.The medical practitioners at times also have to be saved
from such a class of complainants who use criminal process as a tool for
pressurizing the medical professionals/hospitals particularly private
hospitals or clinics for extracting uncalled for compensation. Such malicious
proceedings deserve to be discarded against the medical practitioners.
11.The medical professionals are entitled to get protection so long as they perform their duties with reasonable skill and competence and in the interest of the patients. The interest and welfare of the patients have to be paramount for the medical professionals. “
The ongoing discussions in the group are pointing out towards “fear in the minds of Doctors about attacks and criminal cases”
These guidelines would instill some confidence and help the Doctors to think positively and to believe that everything is not rotten!!!
Consumer Act not meant to instill fear in doctors: SC (FEBRUARY 11, 2010)
Consumer Protection Act should not be a "halter round the neck" of doctors to make them fearful and apprehensive of taking professional decisions at crucial moments,to explore possibility of reviving patients hanging between life and death, the Supreme Court said.
Doctors in complicated cases have to take chance even if the rate of survival is low.
A doctor faced with an emergency ordinarily tries his best to redeem the patient out of his suffering. He does not gain anything by acting with negligence or by omitting to do an act," said a Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and H S Bedi dismissing a CPA complaint against Batra Hospital and Medical Research Centre .
Finding such CPA complaints against doctors on the rise and in many cases these being frivolous, the Bench said, "Courts have to be extremely careful to ensure that unnecessarily, professionals are not harassed and (or else) they will not be able to carry out their professional duties without fear."
It is a matter of common knowledge that after some unfortunate
event, there is a marked tendency to look for a human factor to blame for an
untoward event, a tendency which is closely linked with the desire to
punish," said Justice Bhandari, writing the judgment for the Bench.
Tracing the development of the law in major cases of medical negligence in
India and other countries, especially UK, the Bench collated the above
11-point guideline for the courts to adjudicate complaints against
doctors.
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