Jalandhar maternity home fined ₹70K for negligence

The district consumer disputes redressal forum has fined a local hospital over ₹70,000 for leaving a female patient unattended, after she underwent surgery to deliver her child in 2017.

The forum directed Chhabra Hospital and Maternity Home proprietor Dr Ranu Chhabra to refund ₹32,000 medical expenses spent by complainant Priya Sharma of Bhairon Bazar, Jalandhar, along with interest 12% per annum from December 20, 2017, amounting to ₹8,460.

She has also been asked to pay ₹30,000 as compensation and litigation expenses for causing mental tension and harassment to the complainant.

Sharma had filed a complaint before the forum on December, 20, 2017, alleging that she had undergone a caesarean operation and delivered a female child on August 28, 2017.

The hospital offered her an inclusive package of ₹30,000, which included the hospital stay/room charges while she paid medicine expenses separately.

She told the forum that immediately after delivery, she started feeling internal pain, which was reported by her husband Saurav Sharma to the doctor on duty. However, she was advised oral medicines and discharged by hospital on August 30.

However, the pain remained unbearable for weeks and she had profuse bleeding making her almost unconscious on September 9, 2017, following which her husband took her to the hospital.

“However, Dr Ranu had already left for Mumbai without making arrangement for me. My husband later took me to another hospital on September 11 where a scan fluid collection was detected in my anterior abdominal wall even as Dr Ranu had stated that my all reports were normal,” she told the forum.

She said a surgery was conducted on her in the other hospital on September 12, 2017,

The forum said that this development showed that there was some glaring negligence on the part of the Dr Chhabra.