GURUGRAM: No specialists or super-specialists from private hospitals want to be on the panel of the district medical negligence board that takes up complaints of negligence against other private hospitals.
In a court hearing of a medical negligence case, Pankaj Aggarwal, acting principal medical officer (PMO) of Civil Hospital, suggested that the district court refer the matter to a medical college.
Speaking to TOI, the acting PMO, said private specialists and super-specialists did not want to sour their relationship with other hospitals, which was why they refused to be on board. Due to this, the board lacks teeth to investigate cases of negligence by specialists or super-specialists in private and super-speciality hospitals in the district, he said.
In government hospitals, all doctors are termed as medical officers and even those who have an MS/MD degree are not designated as specialists or super-specialists. Hence, whenever a case is presented before the board, they have to consult specialists from private hospitals for their opinion on matters related to their specific fields, which causes a delay in the case proceedings, he said.
The board currently consists of a PMO, chief medical officer and a representative of the district unit of Indian Medical Association. It is supposed to have two specialist doctors as well. TOI had earlier reported that the board had written to the state health department to provide specialists. Earlier this month, the board was presented a case in which a man alleged that negligence by a city-based private hospital had resulted in the death of his father. The complainant had demanded super-specialists to be put on the panel to look into the technicalities of the case.
Aggarwal, while refusing to divulge the name of complainant and the private hospital, said: “The complainant’s father had a neurological problem and one side of his body was paralysed. More than a year ago, his health deteriorated and he was admitted to hospital. He was later discharged. But after a week, he was unwell again and admitted in a private hospital in the city, where he died after a few days.”
