The Commission, presided by Justice J D Kapoor, held the hospital guilty of “medical negligence” and asked it to pay the sum within a month to retired Lieutenant Colonel Zile Singh Dahiya, who had approached the consumer panel seven years ago, averring lapses in treating his wife.

“The hospital did not provide the patient with the required treatment to cure the cancer, even when the Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) test showed positive for malignancy and a bone scan showed metastasis (spread of the disease to other parts of the body). Unfortunately, it led to untimely death of the patient,” Justice Kapoor said.

Dahiya’s wife Krishna Kumari suffered from cancer of cervix and was treated with radiation therapy at a hospital in Rohtak in September 1999.

As she developed some complications, she contacted a doctor in Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute who advised immediate hysterectomy operation.

Krishna was admitted to the hospital in October 1999 for surgery and was discharged after operation on October 28. However, in August 2000, she developed symptoms indicating that her cancer was resurfacing.

Worried, she rushed to the hospital. An ultrasound and CT scan confirmed metastasis. The doctor, however, lent no credence to the test results and did not proceed treating her on the correct line, the complaint said.

When Dahiya sought advise from another hospital, test results were confirmed but it had wasted three months of the couple and subsequent treatment could not save Krishna’s life as she breathed her last in February 2001.

Denying any kind of negligence, the hospital contended that Krishna was given the best possible treatment consistent with standard medical practices prescribed world over.

The Commission, however, refused to allow the hospital’s plea and noted that after having radiotherapy treatment, the patient was totally cured but the hospital, without taking any investigation of cancer except a CT scan, conducted another operation, which was not at all required.