PRAYAGRAJ, India — The Allahabad High Court has sharply chastised private nursing homes and hospitals for allegedly treating patients like “guinea pigs or ATMs” to get money. Justice Prasant Kumar made these harsh remarks while rejecting a doctor’s request to dismiss criminal charges against him following the death of a pregnant woman.
Dr. Ashok Kumar Rai, who owned a nursing home, was engaged in the case. He let a pregnant woman stay there to give birth and have surgery. The court said that the procedure was delayed a lot because the anesthetist wasn’t available. They got at the nursing home late, which led to the sad death of the fetus. Dr. Rai was fighting the criminal case against him in the matter.
Justice Kumar said that it is customary for hospitals to try to get patients to come in even when they don’t have enough doctors or other resources. The court said that these places “had started treating patients like guinea pigs or ATM machines just to get money from them.”
The court said that while medical professionals deserve protection, this shield does not extend to “those running nursing homes without proper facilities, infrastructure, or doctors and only to fleece patients.”
The court looked at the case files and decided that it was “a pure misadventure.” The doctor accepted the patient and got permission from the family to undertake the surgery, but then didn’t do it on time because the anesthetist wasn’t there.
The court made it clear that the doctor wasn’t unqualified; the question was whether he “exercised reasonable care in providing medical treatment in time or acted carelessly.”
“Consent was given at noon, but the surgery didn’t happen until around 5:30 p.m. Why did the procedure happen at 4 or 5 PM if the consent was granted at 12 PM? The doctor, nursing home, or hospital has no need to wait. The court said, “The doctor/applicant is the only one who can be blamed for this kind of carelessness.” This made it evident that the medical facility and the doctor were both at fault.
Allahabad High Court Slams Private Hospitals For Treating Patients As “Guinea Pigs Or ATM Machines”
