Pune panels to deal with medical negligence

The Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC), a quasi-judicial body empowered to hear cases of medical negligence, has decided to form two-member district-level committees to hear complaints against doctors for faster redressal of complaints.

Under the prevalent system, all complaints filed at the state level have taken years to resolve.  MMC has a pendency of nearly 400-odd cases, some of which were filed 12 years ago.
The state holds the dubious distinction of being among the five worst councils in the country for redressal of patients grievances, given the pendency of cases.

On Saturday, as members of the council met, they started to hear cases. “However by the end of business, we realised that we couldn’t hear more than five cases. This means that it would take about 100 meetings to clear existing pendency, forget about new cases,” said Dr Kishore Taori, MMC president.

“It wasn’t practical and that is why we arrived at the opinion that we would have to form district-level committees which can at least do initial hearings and fact finding on cases,” said the Nagpur-based doctor.

The council resolved to nominate two persons from every district on the committees, which would be finalised in the next meeting. The committees would push for redressal of old complaints and all fresh complaints would be filed with local committees from now on.

Mumbai-based surgeon, Dr Shivkumar Utture, member of the MMC executive council said, “If a person lives in another town or village, he has to come to Mumbai to file case, as well as for hearing. With the formation of the committees, a person can go to local officials and file his/her case,” he said.

The hearing would also be conducted locally, Utture added. Besides, it was also resolved to nominate a MMC member on the state government committee formed at every district hospital to hear complaints against medical practitioners.

Recently Mumbai witnessed a landmark judgement where a top city oncologist was held guilty of medical negligence that caused a woman’s death 23 years ago. Members of the council agreed that justice delayed is also justice denied.

“If the MMC becomes strong and speedy judgement is announced, people might not even need to go to court. For that we need to expedite cases,” Utture said.