Profile of Cases of Alleged Medical Negligence at Tertiary Care Centre: -A Retrospective Study

Abstract

The concept of medical negligence is not new in India. It is there for a long time but since the last 2 decades, medical negligence and legal aspects of medicine have acquired great significance. Today the number of cases of medical litigation is increasing and already it has become a great problem especially for surgeons, anesthetists, obstetricians and gynecologists. The threat of litigation has increased to a great extent after the inclusion of medical services under the preview of Consumer Protection Act 1986 and 2002. The present study is an attempt to discover the ground realisms and basic drawbacks in the service of the healthcare which gives a boost to allegations against the medical practitioners. In this study we have taken into consideration the cases of alleged medical negligence that are referred for expert opinion to the Government medical college, Aurangabad in the period of 2011 to 2015. In the present study Large no. of allegations cases were related to the age group 21–30 years (35.94%). Females in the reproductive age-group (21–40) years had the most frequent no. of cases (54.71%) of allegations. Large no. of cases (78.13%) were related to urban population as against rural population (21.88%). Cases related to allegations against the private hospitals scored more (71.88%) than against government hospitals. 47% of cases were related to surgical specialties which was more than the medicinal aspect.