Medical malpractice

According to statistics there were 76 recorded case of death due to medical malpractice, with senior doctors warning that the number is exponentially higher in reality, as most cases go unreported. This paper finds it absolutely indefensible that patients who suffer injury or death as a result of negligence by medical practitioners find themselves helpless when they seek redress in the legal system as a series of loopholes in the laws allow doctors to escape responsibility for their negligent actions. As reported in our paper, Section 88 of the Bangladesh Penal Code allows doctors to escape such responsibility by simply claiming that they ‘believed’ they were acting in the patient’s ‘best interests’ when they administered wrong treatment that caused death or injury. In this, the legal system fails the victims of malpractice by not instituting Tort Laws which recognise ‘breach of duty’ or ‘negligence’ as a civil offence. In a health system where crores of taka are spent every day by patients who seek private sector healthcare, and public sector hospitals are funded by precious funds from the exchequer, it is absurd that the implied contract when a patient seeks treatment from a doctor is not recognised by the law. This paper’s past investigations have revealed that a powerful ‘medical mafia’ is principally responsible for obstructing any legislation that has till now sought to enshrine a patient’s charter of rights as a legally binding document. This problem is compounded manifold by the fact that this ‘mafia’ also blacklists any senior doctor who testifies negligence against an establishment colleague. These findings are extremely troubling and reveal the government’s utter failure to compel watchdog bodies such as the Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council to perform their duties. In neighbouring India which, like Bangladesh, encountered a spate of such incidents in the past two decades, recognition of a patient’s rights has now come through their consumer protection acts, which deem medical treatment as a service and recognise a patient’s rights as a consumer of that service. It is unfortunate that the draft ordinance of Bangladesh’s equivalent act, now awaiting cabinet approval, fails to provide the same protection to patients. We urge the government to immediately include a broad spectrum of laws in the Consumer Protection Act for patients in recognition of their vulnerability and helplessness.