New Delhi: Delhi's Safdarjung hospital has been asked by the National Consumer Commission to pay Rs two lakh as compensation to the kin of a woman, who died due to inordinate delay in her treatment five years ago.

Holding the Capital's premier medical facility guilty of "medical negligence", the Commission presided by Justice M B Shah dismissed its plea against the lower consumer fora order and directed it to pay the sum within a month to the victim's husband and three children.

On November four, 2002, Fakir Chand had taken his wife in an unconscious state with symptoms of brain hemorrhage to Safdarjung hospital, but was shocked to see the attitude of the doctors and staff who did not attend to her for five hours, the complaint alleged.

Ironically, even after the doctors declared her condition to be critical necessitating ICU facility and a CT Scan, she was not provided the facility and medication for long, which worsened her health forcing Chand to hurriedly take her to Apollo Hospital the same night.

However, the patient's condition was beyond recovery by then and she breathed her last three days later, prompting Chand, a lower division clerk in the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, to file a consumer case through counsel R Krishnan.

Observing that the hospital was grossly negligent in not giving her treatment immediately even as it charged for her CT Scan, a district forum and the Delhi Consumer Commission in their orders asked it to cough up Rs 50,000 each to Chand and his three children.

The apex consumer panel too concurred with the findings of the fora and upheld the earlier order saying, "it is a clear case of medical negligence for unduly delaying treatment to the patient causing further damage to her".

Source : PTI