Mumbai, July 26: Observing that prescribing medicines to patients without diagnosis amounted to culpable negligence, the Bombay High Court has turned down the anticipatory bail pleas of a doctor couple booked for the death of a woman patient.
Justice Sadhana Jadhav made the observations Wednesday while hearing the anticipatory bail pleas filed by a gynaecologist couple – Deepa and Sanjeev Pawaskar. The doctors have been booked by the Ratnagiri Police under section 304 of Indian Penal Code (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) after the patient died earlier this year.
According to the police, the woman was admitted to the accused couple’s hospital in Ratnagiri in February this year where she underwent caesarean operation and gave birth to a baby. The court order said the woman and the child were normal and were discharged two days later.
However, the next day the woman fell sick and her relatives called up Deepa Pawaskar, who asked them to go to a medicine shop and let her speak with the chemist there over phone, it said. The doctor spoke with the chemist who then gave some medicines to the relatives of the woman. However, even after taking the medicines, the woman did not feel better and was taken to the same hospital, it said.
Both Deepa and Sanjeev Pawaskar were not present at the hospital at that time but they told the woman’s family that they should admit her and she would be discharged the next day, the order said. When the woman’s condition deteriorated the next day, the doctors at the hospital shifted her to another hospital, where she died, it said.
The doctors at the second hospital informed the victim’s kin that she had died due to negligence on part of the Pawaskars, following which a case was registered against them, the order said. The high court noted that there was no effort to refer the woman to another doctor in the absence of Deepa Pawaskar and she (Deepa) continued to prescribe medicines telephonically.
“There was no resident medical officer or any other doctor to look after the patient in the absence of Deepa and Sanjeev Pawaskar even when the couple knew that they would not be available in the hospital,” the court said. “Prescription without diagnosis would amount to culpable negligence. This amounts to gross negligence from the point of standard of care and recklessness and negligence, which is a tricky road to travel,” it said. The accused couple, in their pleas, argued that they could not be charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder and should, at the most, be booked under section 304 (A) (causing death due to negligence).
