KARACHI: A consumer court has ordered a private hospital to pay Rs19,750 in compensation to a patient for providing defective and faulty services.

Judge Mukesh Kumar Talreja of the Consumer Protection Court (South) also slapped a fine of Rs50,000 on the management of the private hospital to be deposited in the government treasury within 30 days.

The court also ordered the health facility to improve its services with regard to issuance of radiology reports or any other kind of medical reports.

In case of default, the hospital’s management shall be punished with an imprisonment for a term not less than one month which may extend to three years, or with fine not less than Rs50,000 which may extend to Rs200,000 or with both in terms of Section 33 (2) of the Sindh Consumer Protection Act, 2014.

These directives came on a complaint filed by Ghulam Rehman, who took the management of the private hospital to the court through its chief executive officer over providing defective and faulty medical services to him.

The complainant stated that on June 1, 2019 he was visiting a mall when he felt severe pain in the left side of his abdomen and rushed to the hospital in Clifton, where he was admitted.

He stated that the doctor on duty in the emergency ward after examining his food samples and ultrasound issued a provisional radiology report, suggesting that the pain was due to urine infection and deliberately concluded calculi was not seen in his kidneys.

The complainant alleged that being dissatisfied with these findings he visited another private hospital for a medical examination, where the doctors suggested that he had calculi in both of his kidneys. Advocate Faraz Faheem said his client issued a legal notice to the defendant hospital for providing him defective and faulty medical services, but they denied the allegations.

He asked the court to issue a decree against the defendant hospital in sum of Rs15 million for providing him defective services, causing mental agony and torture, medical expenses paid by him at two hospitals and legal services.

On the other hand, defendant hospital’s counsel Sameer Tayabaly and Akshay Kumar contended that the hand written reports were common in Pakistan and as per Section 14 (1) of SCPA 2014 specific standards had been set; that provisional report was issued on the condition of further testing; but the complainant did not come for further testing.

He further contended that the claimant was not fasting when his tests were conducted, no medical negligence was caused during the treatment, thus no defective service was provided.

In the judgment, the judge held that the defendant provided “defective and faulty” service to the complainant, thus infringed the liability provided under Section 13 of the SCPA 2014.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2021