Open Access Research Article
Case Diary News Report Aaron Fernandes, ‘Pure medical negligence’: Parents of Aishwarya Aswath slam report into her death at Perth hospital, SBS NEWS, (May, 2021) (By-Arav Doss)
Published Paper
Article Details
Case Diary
News Report
Aaron Fernandes, ‘Pure medical negligence’: Parents
of Aishwarya Aswath slam report into her death at Perth hospital, SBS NEWS,
(May, 2021) , 'Pure medical negligence': Parents of Aishwarya Aswath
slam report into her death at Perth hospital (sbs.com.au)
Authored
By- Arav Doss
Summary Of
The News Report
Aishwarya died on easter
Saturday, from a disease called sepsis which is a type of bacterial infection.
The Western Australia Child and Adolescent Health Services (CAHS), which is a
part of the Perth’s children hospital, had a review panel to conduct an inquiry
into her death and treatment and provided the family with and report regarding
the same. Her parents claimed that this report did not give a proper examined
and detailed report about their daughter’s treatment and condition, during her
time in the hospital. They also said that this happened due to the negligence
on the part of the doctors and medical staff and if she had received proper medical
treatment, things would have been different.
On 3rd April,
Aishwarya (7 years old) was suspected of having a fever and was brought to the
Perth children hospital’s emergency department. After going around asking for
help for quite some time, a nurse finally checked her condition. The parents
were not happy with the way the nurse assessed her condition and the reasons
she gave for her temperature and heart rate being on the higher end also did
not satisfy the parents. Mr.
Chavittupara and Ms. Sasidharan were very anxious the whole time. When they
felt their daughters condition worsening, they immediately went to search for
help and find a doctor to look after condition. She died within minutes of
seeing the doctor. The parents felt that their pleas and cries for help were
ignored by the medical staff.
The review panel also
revealed that Aishwarya had not received proper treatment and the medical staff
also failed to recognize her serious condition and this caused a delay in
medical intervention which could have proved to be crucial to her life. The
lack of cultural awareness, and incomplete triage were some of the reasons
which may have contributed to her death. Mr. Roger Cook (the western Australia
health minister) publicly apologized to the family for their loss and also said
that the health system had failed them and there should be some changes made.
The review panel gave the hospital some recommendations to ensure such events
do not occur in the future. The government also did not confirm if the parents
would
receive compensation for
their loss. The parents also wrote to the health minister to implement a system
called ‘Aishwarya’s care’ where the patients in the emergency departments,
safety and proper medical treatment would be ensured.
Torts Involved
The tort involved in this
news report is negligence. In simple terms it means being careless. Negligence
can be defined as breach of a legal duty and the failure of exercising care
that a reasonable man would have performed in that situation. It can be of two
types-civil and criminal. Medical negligence refers to the misconduct of the
medical staff and breach of their duty of care which causes harm to their
patients.
Essentials
And Principles Of Negligence Are:
·
Duty of care (towards the plaintiff): under negligence, the
defendant has a duty towards the plaintiff, to exercise reasonable care while
performing an action. He has a legal duty to take care and if he is careless
then he will be liable to pay compensation for the damages caused to the plaintiff.
·
Breach of duty: under the law, this refers to the failure to perform
an already established duty by the defendant due to his negligence. The
plaintiff must prove that the defendant not only owed him a duty of care and
also prove that he violated it.
·
Damages: for this to be proven the plaintiff should have suffered a
legal damage/loss due to the negligence of the defendant and him breaching the
duty of care owed to the plaintiff. If proven in court, the defendant will be
liable to pay compensation for the damage suffered by the plaintiff.
·
Actual cause/cause in fact (causation): in this, the plaintiff has
to prove that the damages suffered by him due to the defendant’s breach of duty
of care was the actual cause for the loss suffered by the plaintiff.
·
Proximate cause: in simple terms this refers to the set of
actions/events that is the primary cause of the injury/harm suffered. The
plaintiff needs to prove that the defendant’s negligent actions was the cause
of the harm/loss suffered by him. Under negligence, the defendant can be held
liable for the injury only if he could have foreseen the consequences of his
actions. This is also called as the remoteness of damages under negligence.
·
Res ispa loquitor: this is a Latin term which means ‘the thing speaks for
itself’. Under this if the plaintiff gives evidence and proves that defendant’s
negligent actions and breaching of his duty to take care were the reasons for
the injury/loss suffered, then it comes up to the defendant to prove that he
was not negligent in his actions.
Landmark
And Recent Case Laws In Different Jurisdictions
The case of Kunal Saha vs
AMRI[1]
(advanced medical research institute) which is also known as the famous
Anuradha Saha case is landmark judgement in medical negligence. In this case,
Dr. Kunal Saha filed a complaint against 3 doctors of AMRI hospital in Kolkata
for his wife (Anuradha Saha), who was suffering from a drug allergy and died at
age of 36, due to the doctor’s negligence in prescribing medicines which
ultimately caused her death later on. After investigating against the doctors,
the supreme court gave a historic judgment in it was held that compensation for
damages should serve the purpose of providing adequate financial assistance to
the victim’s family in order to fill the hole created by the wrongful death and
the other purpose is to prevent such events of careless behaviors by other
medical staff members and hospitals from happening in the future. The doctors
and the hospital were held liable to pay a compensation of 5.94 crores which
became 11 crores rupees along with interest. This is also the highest amount of
compensation that has been given for a case of medical negligence.
The case of Shilaben
Ashwinkumar Rana vs Bhavin K. Shah and another[2]
(2019) is a recent case on medical negligence. In this case, due to the
negligence of the doctor, a baby which is just 2 and a half years old goes into
a vegetative state after suffering from mental and physical disability, just
after a surgery. The mother filed a complaint and wanted to be compensated for
the injury in order to ensure the protection and proper treatment of her baby
during its vegetative state. The supreme court held that due to medical
negligence and the careless attitude of the doctors even after knowing the
complications which arise post-surgery (which happened to be common in such
cases) they had not taken reasonable care and the necessary precautions
beforehand. Thus, the supreme court held them liable to pay a compensation of
17 lakh rupees to the grieving family.
Article Information
Case Diary News Report Aaron Fernandes, ‘Pure medical negligence’: Parents of Aishwarya Aswath slam report into her death at Perth hospital, SBS NEWS, (May, 2021) (By-Arav Doss)
Authors: Arav Doss
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Published 2022/08/31
- Volume 2
- Issue 7
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- Abbreviation IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Access Open Access
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