Complainant has filed the present Revision Petition. 

In brief, facts are that the complainant developed some respiratory problem and was advised surgery.  She went to Respondent No.1, who advised her to get admitted in the Basanti Sewa Kendra Nursing Home and Holistic Polyclinic – Respondent No.2.  She was admitted in the said nursing home on 11.8.2006 where surgery was done on 12.8.2006.  She was discharged on 15.8.2006.  According to the complainant, her condition, instead of improving, deteriorated day by day.  After the surgery, she became unit to stand and walk.  She told about her condition to Respondent No.1 but he did not pay any heed towards it.  Thereafter, she went to 5 other hospitals.  Aggrieved by this, complainant filed a complaint before the District Forum.

District Forum, by its order dated 27.8.2008, allowed the complaint and directed the respondents to pay Rs.5 lakh under various heads by way of compensation to the complainant.

Respondents, being aggrieved, filed an appeal before the State Commission, which has been allowed.  State Commission has reversed the order of the District Forum and dismissed the complaint.  State Commission recorded that the onus to prove that there was medical negligence was on the petitioner; that the petitioner had failed to prove the negligence on the part of the respondents by producing an expert.  Except the statement of the husband of the petitioner, no other evidence was produced.  State Commission recorded the following finding :

“Considering the contentions of the respective parties and the materials on record we find that the OPs in the Forum below did not adduce any evidence and thus did not contradict the case made out by the complainant.  The sole witness of the complainant in his evidence has stated about various negligence on the part of the OP1 Doctor in the matter of treatment of the petitioner and t has been specifically stated by him that the OP though committed to handover the CD of the operation but he did not hand over the same to the patient party despite request.  But we do not find any evidence that the surgery was recorded in the CD and, therefore, the grievance regarding not handing over the CD is not having any basis.

With regard to the second and main contention as to whether the patients suffered from injury during surgery we find from the materials available on record that the nursing home Appollo recorded biliary stricture, but to show the meaning of the expression biliary stricture no attempt has been made either by the complainant or by the OP.  In the circumstances relying on the dictionary meaning of the word ‘stricture’ we find Chamber’s Twentieth Century Dictionary refers to medical world user as “abnormal narrowing of a passage.  Other meanings of th word given are “binding, closure, tightness.”  Therefore, the said expression stricture does not mean injury.  In Stedman’s Medical Dictionary (28^th Edition) the word ‘Strictrue’ has the following meaning:-

“A circumscribed narrowing or stenosis of a hollow structure, usually consisting of cicatricaial contracture or deposition of abnormal tissue.”

None of the above meanings help us to hold conclusion that stricture means injury.  Therefore, we have not been shown any material from the records to indicate that the patient suffered any injury at the time of surgery by OP1 due to any negligence.

It is not available before us as to on what basis the Forum below has taken the meaning of bilary stricture as injury.  Nothing is indicated in the judgment.

Same is the position with jaundice suffered by the patient as there is no material to show that jaundice was caused by reason of any negligence on the part of the OPs.”

We agree with the view taken by the State Commission.  In the absence of any expert opinion to explain the medical negligence on the part of the respondents while giving treatment, it cannot be held that the respondents were guilty of medical negligence.  Dismissed.