Institutional Medical Negligence In India: Moving Beyond The Negligent Doctor
Keshav Maheshwari, Arpit Meena & Kaushal Kishor Meena, National Law Institute University, Kerwa Dam Road, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
ABSTRACT
Medical negligence in India has traditionally been examined through the conduct of individual medical professionals, with courts principally asking whether a doctor exercised the degree of care and competence expected of a reasonably competent practitioner. While this approach remains essential to determining professional liability, the increasing complexity of modern healthcare raises a broader question: can patient harm always be attributed to the conduct of an individual doctor? Hospitals function through interconnected systems involving medical practitioners, nursing staff, technicians, administrators, protocols, infrastructure, record-keeping mechanisms and institutional policies. Failures within these systems may independently contribute to patient injury even where no single medical professional can be shown to have acted negligently.
The paper analyses the development of medical-negligence jurisprudence through decisions including Achutrao Haribhau Khodwa v. State of Maharashtra, Spring Meadows Hospital v. Harjol Ahluwalia, Savita Garg v Director, National Heart Institute, Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences v. Prasanth S Dhananka and Jacob Mathew v. State of Punjab. It distinguishes institutional negligence from conventional vicarious liability and examines circumstances in which hospitals may be directly responsible for inadequate supervision, deficient systems, poor staffing, failure to maintain records, defective protocols and other organisational failures. The paper further considers the implications of the Consumer Protection Act 2019 and the contemporary regulatory framework governing medical professionals and healthcare institutions.
It argues that Indian law should move beyond treating the hospital merely as an entity vicariously liable for the acts of its doctors and recognise an independent institutional duty of care. Such an approach would preserve the heightened protection afforded to medical professionals against unfounded claims while ensuring that patients are not left without an effective remedy where harm results from systemic failures rather than the isolated conduct of an individual doctor. The paper concludes by proposing a framework for identifying, attributing and remedying institutional medical negligence within Indian healthcare law.
