MUMBAI: The state consumer commission has ordered Dr L H Hiranandani hospital, Powai, and two of its doctors to pay Rs 16 lakh compensation to the daughters of a 73-year-old woman who died after suffering from a kidney disease in 2005. The hospital and the doctors were held guilty of medical negligence after the commission found out that there was delay in diagnosing and treating pyonephrosis that led to septicemia and death. Saraswati Koteeswaran, a breast cancer survivor, was diabetic and died of multiple organ failure.

The commission held that there was use of resistant antibiotics, delay in diagnosis due to a wrong sonography report and delay in diagnosis of pyonephrosis, resulting in delay in its drainage operation. The commission stated that all this decreased the chance to save her.

Her daughters Srividhya and Vijaylaxmi moved the Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in 2015 after their 2011 complaint was rejected by a district forum.

The state commission held that the district forum did not consider evidence from actual medical records, did not talk about the use of resistant antibiotics, delay in diagnosis due to a wrong sonography report, delay in diagnosis of pyonephrosis, leading to delay in its drainage operation, and the lost chance doctrine. Therefore, the judgement and order of the district consumer forum was set aside.

The two doctors, radiologist Natasha Nanda and general physician Gurunam Suri, were ordered to pay Rs 1 lakh each, and the hospital was ordered to pay Rs 8 lakh. The commission stated the compensation had to be paid with 9% interest from 2011, when the compliant was first filed.

In the complaint, the family stated that Saraswati was admitted in August 2005 and treated for a urinary tract infection. She returned in October 2005 after complaining of vomiting of blood and was treated. Saraswati was again admitted on November 18, 2005, with complaint of vomiting of blood and the physician treated her. During the second stay in the hospital, various investigations, including abdominal sonography, CT scan of abdomen and pelvis were done. She was referred to specialists, including a nephrologist, urologist, general surgeons and an oncologist. On November 24, 2005, she was shifted to ICU, and died three days later.

Her family argued that Saraswati was not given proper treatment during admission in November 2005.

The hospital and doctors; however, denied the allegations of medical negligence and said that she was treated by specialists. Nevertheless, the commission said that the patient received antibiotics for more than five out of nine days in the hospital, to which the patient was already resistant, and culture and sensitivity test of urine was not advised at the start of treatment. (TNN)