Consumer courts

A recent case may offer hope to many who have suffered from medical malpractice with no recourse to compensation. On Monday, the consumer court in Lahore ordered a doctor to pay around Rs33 million to the Punjab government and Rs13 million to a man for causing permanent liver damage to his newborn daughter in 2007. The child was misdiagnosed by a child specialist at the Children’s Hospital in Lahore as having jaundice before she received the correct treatment in the United Kingdom. The girl was tested excessively with none of them providing a clear diagnosis. Eventually, the Punjab government partially covered the cost of the treatment. The story is one that many patients face in Pakistan with an increasingly commercialised medical sector resorting to excessive testing without providing any accurate diagnosis. With the consumer court having taken on a doctor, the judgement could pave the way for consumer courts to become a mechanism for reprieve for the sick and their families. In other countries, such as the US, doctors are usually insured against malpractice claims. No such mechanism has existed in Pakistan, where unhappy patients and their families either cry over their ill fate, or raid the hospital and beat up the doctor. The second is a strategy increasingly used as public sector hospitals become poorer and more and more incompetent and private sector hospitals look to mint money.
The consumer court, if it can effectively deal with cases of medical malpractice, could be a way out of a sticky situation for both doctors and patients. The trouble is that using consumer courts is far from an ideal mechanism. Lahore has only one consumer court which is currently over clogged with over 1000 cases. The judge was reported as being forced to divide time between four different district consumer courts. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, consumers courts were created in 2014 with seven judges assigned to oversee consumer infringements in seven divisional headquarters. The Kohat court was reported to have received over 100 complaints in its first few months. The Sindh Assembly also approved consumer courts in February this year. Consumer courts come under the Consumer Protection Act (1997) but it is unclear whether their jurisdiction will be allowed to extend into medical practice. While consumer courts are technically required to decide cases within six months, the case of medical malpractice has taken much larger. Whether to allow consumer courts to pass judgements on medical practice is technically a question for the legislature, but it is likely to be resolved in the higher courts once its decision is appealed. This may not be the best mechanism, but some relief may be available now to the many who have suffered from medical malpractice.