Deterioration in patient's condition post-surgery not necessarily sign of medical negligence: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said every failure of surgery or no positive response to treatment can't be termed as medical negligence unless it is established that the doctor failed to exercise the due skill possessed by him in discharging of his duties.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Pankaj Mithal said when reasonable care, expected of the medical professional, is extended or rendered to the patient, there is no ground for actionable negligence.

"A simple lack of care, an error of judgment or an accident is not sufficient proof of negligence on part of the medical professional so long as the doctor follows the acceptable practice of the medical profession in the discharge of his duties," the bench said.

The court allowed an appeal filed by Dr Neeraj Sud and the prestigious Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Chandigarh against the 2011 order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, which directed them to pay Rs 3 lakh as compensation and Rs 50,000 as cost to complainant Jaswinder Singh and his father for negligence.

Dismissing the plea by the complainant, the bench said, "No evidence was produced of any expert body in the medical field to prove that requisite skill possessed by Dr Sood was not exercised by him in discharge of his duties."

The court said a doctor cannot be held liable for negligence merely because a better alternative treatment or course of treatment was available or that more skilled doctors were there who could have administered better treatment.

The court also said a medical professional may be held liable for negligence only when he is not possessed with the requisite qualification or skill or when he fails to exercise reasonable skill which he possesses in giving the treatment.

The complaint alleged that in 1996, a surgery was performed on a six-year-old boy for the physical deformity diagnosed as ptosis (drooping eyelids). However, instead of any improvement, the condition of the eye further deteriorated post-surgery.

The bench, however, said, "Deterioration of the condition of the patient post-surgery is not necessarily indicative or suggestive of the fact that the surgery performed or the treatment given to the patient was not proper or inappropriate or that there was some negligence in administering the same. In case of surgery or such treatment, it is not necessary that in every case the condition of the patient would improve and the surgery is successful to the satisfaction of the patient".

The bench felt it is very much possible that in some rare cases complications of such nature arise but that by itself does not establish any actionable negligence on part of the medical expert.

The appellants contended complainant was given proper treatment with due care during operation and that the correction and reoccurrence of ptosis is a common complication of congenital ptosis which could have been set right by a repeat surgery. The patient was not examined by Dr Sud after January 1997 as he was taken for treatment to the Guru Nanak Eye Centre, Delhi and to the Dr Daljit Singh Hospital, Amritsar, they said.

The appellants doctor and the institute claimed Sud is a qualified post-graduate in ophthalmology. He had three years of experience in eye surgeries including surgery of ptosis. During the period 1994-1996 when he was a Senior Resident at PGI, he was associated with about 74 ptosis operations.