In a landmark decision on a damages suit, the Lahore Consumer Court ordered on Monday a doctor to pay 212,267 pounds sterling (Rs33.963 million) and Rs13.07m to a man for causing permanent damage to the liver of his new-born daughter in 2007. The court found Professor Dr Tahir Masood, a former dean of the Children Hospital, guilty of showing criminal negligence while treating Syeda Durr-e-Zahra, daughter of Syed Ali Murtaza, a government official. The baby, however, survived after liver transplant in the United Kingdom. The complainant stated in his petition that his daughter was born on May 31, 2007 and examined by Dr Masood in June. He diagnosed ordinary jaundice and assured the father that the disease would go away within two months. But the condition of the child did not improve and Dr Masood continued to advise expensive pathological tests, Mr Murtaza said. He alleged that the excessive tests of his daughter and ignorance shown by the professor in the treatment led to a permanent damage of the baby’s liver. He said that he took his baby to the UK for liver transplant and spent 206,625 pounds at the Kings College Hospital in London. The Punjab government provided him 155,000 pounds for the transplant. Dr Masood contested the allegation but failed to establish his innocence. The judge, Syed Khurshid Anwar Rizvi, ordered Dr Masood to pay 155,000 pounds to the Punjab government. He also ordered him to pay the complainant 57,267 pounds as partial cost of the treatment and Rs 13.07m as the cost of travel to the UK, stay there and recurrent medical expenditure of the infant. The story is one that many patients face in Pakistan with an increasingly commercialised medical sector resorting to excessive testing without providing any accurate diagnosis. With the consumer court having taken on a doctor, the judgement could pave the way for consumer courts to become a mechanism for reprieve for the sick and their families. In other countries, such as the US, doctors are usually insured against malpractice claims. No such mechanism has existed in Pakistan, where unhappy patients and their families either cry over their ill fate, or raid the hospital and beat up the doctor. The second is a strategy increasingly used as public sector hospitals become poorer and more and more incompetent and private sector hospitals look to mint money.
The consumer court, if it can effectively deal with cases of medical malpractice, could be a way out of a sticky situation for both doctors and patients. The trouble is that using consumer courts is far from an ideal mechanism. Lahore has only one consumer court which is currently over clogged with over 1000 cases. The judge was reported as being forced to divide time between four different district consumer courts. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, consumers courts were created in 2014 with seven judges assigned to oversee consumer infringements in seven divisional headquarters. The Kohat court was reported to have received over 100 complaints in its first few months. The Sindh Assembly also approved consumer courts in February this year. Consumer courts come under the Consumer Protection Act (1997) but it is unclear whether their jurisdiction will be allowed to extend into medical practice. While consumer courts are technically required to decide cases within six months, the case of medical malpractice has taken much larger. Whether to allow consumer courts to pass judgements on medical practice is technically a question for the legislature, but it is likely to be resolved in the higher courts once its decision is appealed. This may not be the best mechanism, but some relief may be available now to the many who have suffered from medical malpractice. This failure of the medical profession is causing growing numbers of people to go abroad for even routine treatments, but this option is only available to those who can afford it — a select few.
It is becoming increasingly imperative that the power a doctor enjoys over his or her patients be exercised with due care. When they fail to do so, then doctors need to be held accountable for their failure to discharge their professional duties in an ethical manner.
pk.shafaqna.com
