Importance Of Medical Negligence

In the past era doctors were treated like God, that means a faith and sanctity was attached to them. They were healer of distress of the sufferer and their fees was a mere feeling of gratitude shown towards their good deeds. Being a divine profession, doctors were strictly bound by the ethical codes. Due to the inclusion of the hospitals as an industry there is rush of private financers and corporate business units with no medical backgrounds. In the wake of this change the medical professional is becoming totally commercialized and a money generating unit. This change in the industrial sector starts reflecting in shifting the image of the doctor from ethical duty bound personality to a business person in the society. Thus, leading to see
In this type of negligence special skill is required by the wrong doer, i.e. the professional is one, who prefers to have some special skill. Any doctor who has established a relationship of professional attendance with a patient and who has undertaken to bring a reasonable degree of care to his course of treatment, when fails to undergo such degree of care and skill then he may have shown medical negligence. A professional impliedly assures the person dealing with him:
- that he has the skill which he professes to possess,
- that skill shall be exercised with reasonable care and caution,
So, the professional can be held liable for negligence when he was not possessed of the requisite skill which he profess to hold and when he does not exercise it with reasonable care and caution.
Elements of Actionable Medical Negligence “Actionable negligence” is that which imports the liability of the doer. In order to establish the liability of medical negligence, it must be shown that:
• The doctor has a duty to take care towards the patient;
• The doctor was in breach of that
They should not wait and see but they should move to different place and hold lok adalats; other camps, so that justice should reach the masses.
• The doctrine of charitable immunity which is excluded from the purview of consumer protection Act should be included. For this purpose the definition of services needs to be amended.
Free Medical Services The medical treatment awaited by a patient in a government hospital, is not for a consideration. So, it is suggested that an amendment be issued to the act to delete the provision of “consideration”, in regard to government health and medical services. If the patient, who avails of the services of the government hospitals, is covered by an Insurance policy, then the patient becomes a beneficiary of the service of the government hospitals. Because of this the service termed here can’t be said to be “free”. Payment for Special Wards should be considered under the Act as a consideration. The person paying here should be termed as a “consumer”.
• Redressal agencies are constituted of judges, president and members which have only legal knowledge of medical negligence cases. So, an independent redressal body should be constituted for the adjudication which should include members from medical background