The hospital has moved Calcutta High Court contesting the directive of the regulatory panel,” Gourab Lal, DC, East Division, told The Sunday Express. File Relatives of a patient filed an FIR against a prominent private hospital in Kolkata claiming forgery of signature on the consent form after the latter allegedly refused to comply with the order of the West Bengal Clinical Establishments Regulatory Commission (WBCERC) holding it responsible for negligence which resulted in the death of the patient, 77-year-old Samita Mukherjee, wife of a retired major general of the Indian Army, last year.
The panel directed the hospital to pay Rs 5 lakh to the patient’s kin as compensation.“The case is about forgery of signature for operative consent. An investigation is underway to check if signatures were forged. Officers of the Questioned Document Examination Bureau (QDEB) will be roped in to ascertain if the papers were forged.
The hospital has moved Calcutta High Court contesting the directive of the regulatory panel,” Gourab Lal, DC, East Division, told The Sunday Express. The FIR alleging forgery was filed on February 2 under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (purpose of cheating) and 471 (whoever fraudulently uses a security as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code. The FIR was registered at Purba Jadavpur police station after preliminary examination of the documents.
“There had been total miscommunication as would appear from the WhatsApp messages and call records (sic)… We hold the CE (Medica) responsible for the maladministration and manhandling of the situation and award a sum of rupees 5 lakh as compensation,” read an excerpt from the WBCERC order dated December 22.
Mukherjee was admitted to Medica Superspecialty Hospital on August 27, last year after she complained of pain in her abdomen which was suspected to be from gallbladder stones. She was admitted to the Emergency ward and, thereafter, to a High Dependency Unit (HDU) under an endocrinologist and a general surgeon.The family said she was initially advised conservative treatment as she was responding well to oral medications (antibiotics). A diabetic for the last twenty years, she had twice suffered heart failure and had a pacemaker installed because of arrhythmia.
However, they alleged that the treatment plan was changed overnight by the hospital on August 29 without consultation or discussion with them or doctors who were attending on her.“The team of doctors had no internal communication and neither was there a joint discussion except for the first time when she was in the HDU,” a member of the family claimed.
The family further alleged that the patient, herself, had informed her daughter of the surgery, adding that she had been taken off food and water since midnight. The patient was neither counselled nor informed of the very high-risk surgery by any of the attending doctors, the kin claimed. She died at the hospital on August 31, 2021.
“There is no question of consent. They didn’t even let us or my mother know that they were planning a surgery. She was in a state of panic when she called me. The hospital had started preparing for the surgery. They had put her on fast for 18 hours without speaking to us or among themselves. Without considering her medical history or the fact that she belonged in the high-risk category of patients, they started preparing for the surgery. We want this hospital shut down. It has zero ethics,” said Myna Mukherjee, the patient’s daughter, who is also a well-known curator.
The daughter claimed that her mother died due to the ‘carelessness’ of the hospital authorities.However, the hospital released a statement denying the claims. “We have the OT consent papers. The OT was planned on August 30 and her father signed on the consent paper as it was a high-risk case. The patient and her daughter also signed it at 6pm. They have shared a paper from August 27 having a signature that isn’t theirs. How could we verify who signed on that paper on her first day at the hospital as we have no background information available.
“We duly submitted our response to the honourable commission before the hearing in the month of December (2021). We have mentioned the time when they signed on the consent form. We have challenged the order of commission at the high court. Our petition was filed on January 28. The matter was to be listed for hearing on February 7. So, they (the patient’s kin) filed the complaint as an afterthought,” Komal Dashora, president, Medica Superspecialty Hospital, said.
However, the hearing couldn’t be held on the scheduled date.The hospital authorities claimed there was a delay in surgery as the patient’s kin delayed giving their consent.“The delay in OT may also be attributed to their delay in giving consent. Until a patient’s family gives consent, we cannot move the person to OT. It was decided that the patient will undergo surgery around 10 pm on August 29. Next morning, two medical boards were formed and after a detailed explanation to the family, they signed on the first consent form around 4.30 pm and the second at 6pm. After 7pm, the patient was shifted to the OT.
“Her condition deteriorated after she was administered anaesthesia. She was admitted with multiple comorbidities and her family was fully aware that she was to be operated on. However, we couldn’t pinpoint a specific date on when she will undergo surgery as we had to stabilise her blood sugar levels. The matter is sub-judice and we will await the court’s direction in the matter,” Dashora added.
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