WIDE REACTIONS TO ANURADHA SAHA JUDGMENT: MEDICAL COMMUNITY CLAIMS “CAP” ON COMPENSATION AS VICTIMS OF MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE SEE A RAY OF HOPE
Supreme Court of India delivered final verdict in the much publicized Anuradha Saha wrongful death case ten days ago – highest-ever compensation of about Rs. 11 crore (including interest) against a top Kolkata hospital (AMRI) and three senior Kolkata doctors including Dr. Sukumar Mukhrjee who still occupies the post of “chief adviser” in health for the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal. But already enormous ripple effects are felt across India and far beyond. New York Times carried a long report on their world news this week with a title “A Landmark Turn in India’s Medical Negligence Law”. Even top international medical journal published from UK, British Medical Journal (BMJ), carried the story in their latest edition. But the news has swept coast to coast in India. Leaders of the influential medical lobby including Indian Medical Association (IMA) have started to cry foul and demanded that doctors and hospitals should be kept out of the ambit of Consumer Protection Act (CPA) even though this issue has been categorically settled by Supreme Court in 1995 in IMA vs. V.P. Shanta (AIR 1996 SC 550). Some medical leaders even claimed that a “cap” or limit in compensation must be fixed in “medical negligence” cases. Is there any “cap” on the exorbitant amount of money that private hospitals charges to the vulnerable patients? But ordinary people and countless victims of alleged medical negligence who have been waiting for years and decades for just find solace and a ray of hope in this historic judgment. Anuradha’s husband and PBT president, Dr. Kunal Saha, has also written a brief opinion on this judgment that has been carried in this week’s (Nov. 10) magazine “OUTLOOK” (link is provided below).
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