Team Herald
PANJIM: Setting aside the order passed by the Goa State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission holding Dr Dilip Amonkar and two others responsible for medical negligence in the death of a 17-year-old girl in July 2010, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), New Delhi has absolved Dr Amonkar and others of any negligence.
On February 27, 2014, the State Commission, Goa, upon hearing the parties partly allowed the complaint filed by victims parents Michael and Gloria Rodrigues and awarded Rs 18 lakh to be paid by the three doctors jointly and severally and to also to pay Rs 10,000 towards litigation costs, for the death of Ravina Rodrigues (170 of Poriebhat, Verna, who died after undergoing appendectomy surgery.
Aggrieved by the order, Dr Amonkar, Dr Shantaram Surme and Dr Shridhar Pai filed an appeal before the NCDRC, under Section 19 of the Consumer Protection Act.
A bench of the NCDRC comprising Presiding Member Dr S Kantikar and Member Binoy Kumar in their judgement set aside the order passed by the Goa State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, while noting that it had wrongly accepted the statement of a nurse, who was neither an operating surgeon nor a pathologist.
The NCDRC has held that Dr Amonkar and the two other doctors who had treated Ravina Rodrigues had performed their duties with reasonable skill and competence in the interest of the patient and so deserved protection from such litigation while also observing that Dr Amonkar had attended to the medical emergency on humanitarian grounds, though working as Head of Surgery at the Goa Medical College, Bambolim.
The NCDRC in its order has relied on a judgement of the Supreme Court which held that it was the bounden duty and obligation of the Civil Society to ensure that medical professionals are not unnecessarily harassed or humiliated so that they can perform their professional duties without fear and apprehension.
