ORDER

SH. RAKESH KAPOOR, PRESIDENT

           The darker side of commercialization which has permeated
the medical services in our country is perhaps best illustrated by the
complaint before us.  We are astounded by the facts revealed in this
complaint where a person who was “brought dead” to the OP hospital,
which is a prestigious medical institute in the Capital City of Delhi,
was put through a resuscitation procedure and bills raised before the
release of the body. For once, we are not relying on the story put
forth by the complainant.  The story made out by the OP hospital
itself shows the highly unethical manner adopted by it in order to
earn money dishonestly. The story put forth by the OP which is
contained in the preliminary objection of the written statement filed
by it reads as under:





PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS

1.  That the present complaint is an abuse of the process of the court
and is intended merely to harass and blackmail and tarnish the
goodwill of the answering respondent and its doctors for unjust
enrichment.  The fact of the matter is that on 22.11.2013 Sh. Jai
Prakash was received in the emergency ward of the hospital at 11.25 PM
in collapsed state from Sant Parmanand Hospital. At the time of
presentation to emergency the patient was already clinically dead and
he was pulse less with no spontaneous respiratory

effort, pupils dilated and unreactive. His ECG was taken which showed
flat line suggestive of cardiac death.  The factum of the patient
being clinically dead was thus communicated to the attendants of the
patient including one Sh. Umesh Kumar, that is, the son of the
patient. The said Sh. Umesh Kumar stated that the patient was alive
till about 20-30 minutes back and he alongwith other attendents
requested the   Doctors on duty to try and retrieve  the patient by
"Pesuscitation Measures".  The Doctors on duty tried  their level best
to resuscitate the patient for about 30 minutes   by employing
'Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in an attempt to revive the electrical
cardiac activity, but unfortunately , the patient could not be
revived. All this was done in good faith, to the knowledge of the
attendants and with a noble sentiment  of leaving no stone unturned as
per medical practices to resuscitate the patient.  The said revival
measures,, treatment etc. inter-alia, involves Doctors attempts (4
Doctors including Anesthetist) Nursing, medicines, IV fluids,
monitors, electrodes, Defibrillators, Ambubag etc. After the efforts
for  resuscitation b  of the patient failed, besides handing over the
body of the patient to Sh. Umesh Kumar, that Is, the son of  the
patient, at

2. 12.00 AM; a 'Brought Dead" certificate was also issued to him
depicting the actual time of diagnosis of death by the Doctor on duty
as 11.29 PM, which would necessarily be soon after the time of arrival
and not at the end of resuscitative measure. The bills for the
'Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation “ listing all  items used in the said
procedure were raised in a total sum  of Rs.13,602/- (Rs.9946/- and
Rs.3656/-) and the same were paid  by the said Sh. Umesh Kumar. In
view of the above factual matrix, the Complainant is malafidely and
dishonestly feigning ignorance of the death of the patient at the time
of arrival at the emergency of the hospital and make malicious and
false allegations  merely because of department reimbursement
policies and non-reimbursement of the expenses by the concerned
department. The conduct of the Complainant is clearly untruthful and
undermines the sincerity of the Doctors Who tirelessly tried to
resuscitate the father of the Complainant. The falsehood is also
apparent from the fact that the said certificate was issued at the
time of handing over of the body of the patient to his son Sh. Umesh
Kumar, who in fact, on the basis of such certificate even applied to
his department for reimbursement. Since the said certificate depicted
the correct factual position, the Complainant and his brother did not
raise any such objection, as now sought to be raised and in fact used
the said certificate to seek reimbursement from the concerned
department. The hospital had acted in good faith to revive the
patient's life irrespective of his departmental reimbursement
policies. The Doctors instead of being appreciated for their efforts
are rather being subjected to malicious and false allegations merely
because the department has refused to reimburse the Complainant. The
conduct of the Complainant has been most unfortunate and totally
unjustified and the complaint is thus liable to be dismissed with
compensatory costs. Copy of the Brought Dead Certificate of Mr. Jai
Prakash, is annexed herewith and marked as Annexure-A. Copy of the
Bills are annexed herewith and marked as Annexure-B.





    The written statement filed by the OP makes an admission that a
“dead body” was received in the hospital on 22.11.2013 at 11.25 PM
where upon it had performed lab tests as well as resuscitation
procedure on the same.  The written statement further makes an
admission that a pathology test related to the blood sugar was
performed on the dead body at a cost of Rs. 86/-.  A sum of Rs. 8100/-
was charged as miscellaneous charges, a sum of Rs. 220/- was  charged
on account of ECG and another  sum of Rs. 1540/- was charged for
intubation by the cardiology team of the hospital.

           Were these tests required to be performed?       Why was  a
blood sugar test performed on a dead  body?   Where was the necessity
of performing resuscitation procedure when the patient had already
been declared to be dead?

When we confronted the learned counsel for the OP  with the above
questions , he contended that the lab test and resuscitation procedure
was undertaken on the request of the relation of the deceased.   He
saw nothing wrong in the action of the hospital in performing these
tests/ procedure  and rather defended the same by contending that the
doctors in the hospital did a great effort in trying to revive the
dead body.

We are, however, not impressed with the stand taken by the learned
counsel on behalf of the OP. If the patient was already “brought dead”
in the hospital and the fact was known to the doctors / hospital, no
resuscitation procedure could have been undertaken by it. Pray, where
was the need to undertake a  pathology test in order to determine the
blood sugar level of the deceased.  No medical jurisprudence or report
 supports such a procedure.  The OP hospital has not placed on record
any document / report which permits such a procedure / test to be
performed on a dead body.    A resuscitation procedure / lab test
cannot be undertaken merely on the request of attendants/ relations.
Would the hospital have put the dead body on a life support system  on
its own or on the request of the attendants / relations. We are ,
therefore, of the considered opinion that the resuscitation procedure/
lab test were undertaken by the OP hospital  dishonestly, for
extraneous reasons and for  unlawful gains.  We are astounded by the
fact that there is no remorse, no regret , no apology from the side of
the hospital whose stand in the written statement shows an open
defiance.  The hospital having undertaken what was an unacceptable
medical practice   was not expected to defend its action and was
rather expected to apologize  for its acts. This leads us to believe
that  this was not a solitary case of its kind  and  there might have
been many such cases which have remained unreported.

With the advent of 5/7 star  hospitals , the cost of health care has
gone very high. There is fierce competition amongst these hospitals
who employ the latest equipment in the world to diagnose and treat
their patients.  The cost of running a hospital has also increased
enormously . Of late, however, there have been reports , though
unconfirmed ,that many hospitals / nursing homes are resorting to
various malpractices  to earn illegal money.  There are reports that
patients are being subjected to medical procedures which are not at
all required to the performed on them.  There are also reports that in
many cases  pathology or other  tests are being prescribed which have
no co-relation to the disease with which the patient is suffering.
Many hospitals insist as a policy that medicines be purchased from the
pharmacy / chemist located inside the hospital where medicines are
sold at a price which is much higher than in the local market.    In
some cases, it is reported that the medicines are available  in the
local market at a rate which is 40 % lower than the one charged by the
hospital chemist. Even otherwise the cost of healthcare/ treatment is
private hospitals/ nursing home is prohibitive.

     In the light of the above background, we hold the OP hospital
guilty of unfair trade practice and direct as under:-

1. A copy of the order shall be set to DMC/ IMC for appropriate action
against the OP hospital.

2. A copy of the order shall be sent to Delhi Medical Services  Govt
of NCT of delhi for necessary action.

3. The OP hospital shall reimburse the sum of Rs. 13,602/- to the
complainant along with  interest @12% p.a. from the date of deposit
till payment.

4. The OP Hospital shall deposit a sum of Rs. 5 Lakhs with the
Consumer Welfare Fund maintained at the State Commission Delhi as
punitive damages.

5.  The OP Hospital shall pay a sum of Rs. 5,000/-  to the complainant
as cost of litigation.

   The OP shall pay this amount within a period of 30 days from the
date of this order failing which they shall be liable to pay interest
on the entire awarded amount @ 10% per annum.  IF the OP fails to
comply with this order, the complainant may approach this Forum for
execution of the order under Section 25/27 of the Consumer Protection
Act.

     Copy of the order be made available to the parties as per rule.

  File be consigned to record room.

Announced in open sitting of the Forum on.....................