Ahmedabad doctor pays price for botched-up abortion case

Ahmedabad, Aug 28 (IANS) The Gujarat State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has slapped a fine of nearly Rs 23,000 with nine per cent interest on an Ahmedabad gynaecologist in a botched-up abortion case which forced the patient to run from one hospital to another.

The Commission's order of June 17, 2017, in the 2005 case when the woman was in her 20s, was recently received by the Consumer Education and Research Society (CERS) that had taken cudgels on behalf of Sima Kothiya, now in her early 40s.

"Sima's story speaks a lot of the lack of sensitivity towards women patients by the medical professionals and this is shocking," Pritee Shah, director of CERS, told IANS.

Kothiya, who belongs to Ahmedabad, went to Dr D.N. Patel at Marie Stopes Parivar Clinic way back in 2005 for a routine check-up where she learnt she was two months pregnant.

According to her petition, she decided to undergo abortion or medical termination of pregnancy since her husband was unemployed and they could not afford to support a second child. The surgery was done and she paid Rs 520 for it.

However, the next day, she developed severe pain in the abdomen and consulted Patel who simply asked her to continue the medicines he had prescribed. But her condition went from bad to worse the next day and this time, the doctor only said he could not do much since it was a holiday at the clinic.

In a critical condition, she was admitted to another hospital where her sonography revealed that the MTP at the previous place was not done properly. Not only this, an ectopic pregnancy, or a conception in the fallopian tubes, was found.

Revealing the details, Pritee Shah said Kothiya's uterus was badly damaged and there was acute blood loss. She had to be transferred to yet another hospital where her ectopic pregnancy was terminated and she was given blood.

Shah said Kothiya must have spent Rs 26,000 which was a fortune for her since she came from a very modest economic background. Kothiya wrote to Patel to compensate her for the expenses in getting the second procedure done but there was no response.

Kothiya then approached CERS, which in turn issued a legal notice to the gynaecologist. This too, like her letter, went without a response. It took a complaint with the Ahmedabad District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum that elicited some reply from Patel, who disputed that he was careless and said he had properly terminated the uterine pregnancy.

The gynaecologist submitted in the consumer court that an ectopic pregnancy along with an uterine pregnancy was a rare occurrence and could not be diagnosed easily in a clinical examination.

However, the district consumer forum in 2010 ruled in favour of Kothiya and charged the doctor with negligence, observing that the doctor did not bother to conduct a sonography before and after MTP, which should have been done. Even the abortion of the uterine pregnancy was not done properly.

The forum observed that though the patient had complained of severe abdominal pain a day after the procedure, the doctor had not ordered a sonography and this was a "careless approach that endangered her life".

It directed the gynaecologist to pay Rs 12,555 to Kothiya for medical expenses and Rs 25,000 with nine per cent interest as compensation for mental and physical harassment and towards litigation costs. However, Patel challenged this in the Gujarat State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission which upheld the verdict though the compensation amount was reduced to Rs 10,000 from Rs 25,000.

The Commission upheld the Forum's verdict but modified its order by reducing the amount of compensation from Rs 25,000 to Rs 10,000.

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