Study of the Cases of Medical Negligence

Medical negligence is said to be an act committed by a health professional or care provider in which the provided treatment was supposedly below the standard expected. The overwhelming incidences of medical negligence mostly go without any legal action leading to a frustrating situation where public trust is completely lost on the medical service providers. There is an urgent need to put a check on increasing trend in the number of medical negligence cases and deteriorating quality of healthcare in India. In this study, properly investigated cases by formally constituted committee on medical negligence were discussed, which can provide insights into the factors mainly responsible for medical negligence, prevailing circumstances and impact on doctor-patient relationship etc.40 cases were referred for expert opinion regarding medical negligence to the committee for scrutiny, out of which 31 cases were finally considered for analysis after due exclusions. Out of these, medical negligence was proven in 4 cases, disproven in 17 cases and in 10 cases opinion was not possible due to varying reasons. Most of the cases (48.3 %) belonged to surgical& allied disciplines. General lack of communication (29 %) and misunderstanding amongst patients relatives about medical services being provided by medical professionals (29 %) were found to be major reasons behind filling of complaints. It was concluded that lack of soft skills& communication on the part of medical service providers, rather than lacunae in clinical care, were majorly responsible.