Doctors may err in diagnosing, says National Consumer Commission

New Delhi, Jun 1 (UNI) Error of judgment during diagnosis does not amount to deficiency in service, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has ruled while dismissing a multi-crore rupee claim of negligence filed against five doctors and a hospital in Kolkata.

''We reiterate that Doctors or Surgeons do not undertake that they will positively cure a patient. There may be occasions beyond the control of the medical practitioner to cure the patients,'' a bench comprising NCDRC President Justice M B Shah and members Justice K S Gupta and Mrs Rajyalakshmi Rao said today while disposing of a complaint by US-based doctor Kunal Saha.

Dr Saha had claimed Rs 77,76,73,500 with interest as damages for the deficiency in the service rendered by the doctors in treating his wife Anuradha Saha who was suffering from Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (TEN), a disease which affects only 1 or 1.3 persons out of every 10 lakh.

Mrs Saha died at the Breach Candy hospital, Mumbai, on May 28, 1998. In a complaint, Dr Saha alleged that she died because of negligence and an overdose of steroids administered at the Advanced Medicare Research Institute Ltd, Kolkata, by the doctors Sukumar Mukherjee, Baidyanth Halder, Abani Roy Chowdhury, Balram Prasad and Kaushik Nandy.

While backing the ''clinical assessment'' of the doctor who prescribed medicines to Mrs Saha, the bench said that an examination of the record showed that it was ''difficult'' to arrive at the conclusion that the patient was given an excessive dose of medicine.

The bench also ruled as ''without substance'' the complaints against the other doctors named in the complaint and the hospital.

''Error of Judgment in the process of diagnosis does not amount to deficiency in service, as the disease, TEN is a rare one occurring 1 to 1.3 per million per year and that the most common complication of TEN is bacterial superinfection,'' it said.

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