The Importance Of Medical Negligence

cause as far as possible.

Medical science has done many benefits on humankind, but these benefits are gained by considerable risks. No one can take benefits without taking risks. Doctors is the profession which has to learned by experience, and experience often teaches in a hard way and during this journey doctors often use to get trapped in difficulties and their act is termed as medical negligence and they are brought under the ambit of medical negligence. At this point a line must be drawn between medical negligence and negligence for which an apt reference is made to the following observation made by Lord denning in the case Hucks v Cole.

A doctor must not be held negligent just because something went wrong. He must not be liable for an

. Lord Atkin in his speech in Andrews v Director of Public Prosecutions stated, “simple lack of care – such as will constitute civil liability — is not enough; to prove criminal law there are degrees of negligence; and a very strong reason is needed to prove before felony is established. To impose a criminal liability under section 304A of IPC, it is necessary that death should be the direct result of a rash and negligent act of the accused , and that act must be the proximate and efficient cause without the intervention of another’s negligence. It must be the causa causans; it is not enough that it may have been the causa sine qua

He ‘should’ be alert to the hazards and risks in any professional task he undertakes to the extent that other ordinarily competent members of the profession would be alert. He must bring to any professional task he undertakes no less expertise, skill and care than other ordinarily competent members of his profession would bring, but need bring no more.

But for holding a medical professional criminally liable for an offence of medical negligence we must go on by the maxim, “Omne actum ab intentione agentis est judicandum” and see whether there is any intention or not, if there is then he should be prosecuted and punished but if it is missing then test of being ‘gross’ should be applied.

Owing to the landmark judgment exempting medical professionals from any criminal liability, unless and until there is a gross negligence on their part, the general public was in mayhem as to the patient’s rights in correlation with the negligent acts of the doctor. Ad idem the Hon’ble Judges have categorically held that the patient has a right to be treated with a reasonable degree of care, skill and knowledge. A mistake by a medical practitioner which a careful practitioner would have committed is nothing short of negligence. But the law recognizes the dangers which usually happnes in surgical operations, where the operations is a race