A Critical Analysis Of The Laws Regarding Medical Negligence In India

Nishita Gupta, Amity Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, Noida

ABSTRACT

According to a saying, "health is wealth," and it is clear from the meaning of the term that human health is an important asset. We are fortunate to have medical specialists that are dedicated to the honourable and prestigious area of medicine providing healthcare. Taking the Hippocratic Oath seriously is essential for doctors to perform medicine with the utmost integrity and responsibility. But given the increasing number of medical malpractice claims in the present climate, it appears that practicing medicine has become more of a business. As a result, patients' lives who placed their confidence and trust in their treating physician have been mismanaged. One term that might be used to characterize medical malpractice is medical negligence. A basic knowledge of how judicial forums deal with the cases relating to medical negligence is of absolute necessity for doctors. Medical practices have now a days, became the medical malpractices, as people leave their own lives and full health on to the medical practitioners, on the belief that they will provide us with the best treatment in the best possible manner, they could. But the actual truth is that, the medical practitioners or the medical professionals, usually perform some negligent, or say, careless acts that could even be life threatening for the patients. This has been increased to un increasing level, as of in India, and that too leading to the loss of the lives of the individuals trusting their doctors and giving them their whole lives in their hands. The need for such knowledge is more now than before in light of higher premium being placed by the Indian forums on the value of human life and suffering, and perhaps rightly so. Judicial forums, while seeking to identify delinquents and delinquency in the cases of medical negligence, aim at striking a careful balance between the autonomy of a doctor to make judgments and the rights of a patient to be dealt with fairly. In the process of adjudication, the judicial forums tend to give sufficient leeway to doctors and expressly recognize the complexity of the human body, inexactness of medical science, the inherent subjectivity of the process, genuine scope for error of judgment, and the importance of the autonomy of the doctors. The law does not prescribe the limits of high standards that can be adopted but only the minimum standard below which the patients cannot be dealt with. Judicial forums have also signalled an increased need of the doctors to engage with the patients during treatment, especially when the line of treatment is contested, has serious side effects and alternative treatments exist.