Mumbai: The Bombay High Court called for those managing hospitals to be conscious of basic human rights after a ‘hale and hearty’ child lost a limb 15 years ago at one run by the Thane Municipal Corporation. The court stated, “Unless there is appropriate accountability fixed, things can never change.”
The HC upheld a Rs 15 lakh payout recommended in Dec 2016 by the State Human Rights Commission to a man whose two-and-a-half-year-old son lost a leg in 2010 due to the “clear medical negligence” of doctors at a Thane Municipal Corporation hospital who failed to attend to him in time.
“It cannot be countenanced that human life is so worthless that such meagre compensation ought not to be entitled to the petitioner and for the benefit of his son,” said a division bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Advait Sethna in a Jan 14 order. Mohammed Shaikh, the father of the minor child, petitioned the HC after TMC failed to pay, saying it had in 2014 paid the father Rs 10 lakh as ex-gratia payment and hence its duty was to only pay Rs 5 lakh. The HC said the child was at the mercy of TMC and its doctors.
The HC observed it was an “unfortunate case” of the child being a victim of negligence at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital at Kalwa, Thane, being run by the TMC. The HC order authored by Justice Kulkarni said, “The petitioner’s son, in the absence of such an unfortunate incident, would have led a normal life and, God knows, been successful in life by enjoying normal faculties.” It directed the TMC to pay him the remaining Rs 10 lakh, with interest, since December 2016 when the MHRC passed its order.
The father, his lawyer Seema Chopda said, was a plumber and first approached the TMC for compensation and also the MSHRC, alleging violation of human rights and medical negligence. The TMC on June 2, 2014, paid him the ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh. The HC said the amount was “certainly inadequate.” Chopda argued that the TMC should pay the entire Rs 15 lakh with interest. TMC lawyer Ajit Pitale refuted, arguing that Rs 10 lakh was already paid. The MHRC, noting the human rights violation and medical negligence, which the TMC too accepted, directed TMC and dean, Rajiv Gandhi Medical College Kalwa, to pay the father Rs 15 lakh with 12% interest. The MHRC noted that the “municipal commissioner, despite the strong recommendations of imposing a major penalty on both the doctors, decided to go soft by imposing a minor penalty” only.
The HC found “serious fault” with a 2021 letter of the dean to TMC to include Rs 10 lakh in the payout. The HC said the stand was “totally inappropriate.” The High Court directed the amount be paid at an additional 6.5 percent to the father.
