Woman gets HepB after blood transfusion, Escorts to pay Rs 50K

The Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre (Escorts) has been ordered by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission to pay Rs 50,000 to a woman who had contracted Hepatitis-B due to blood transfusion to her during her cardiac surgery.

The apex consumer commission's judgment came on an appeal by the Escorts against an order of State Consumer Commission of Delhi which had held the hospital guilty of negligence and rendering deficient service and had asked it to pay Rs 50,000 to her.

"We agree with the findings of the State Commission that there is adequate evidence on record to establish that there is clear nexus between the blood transfusion into respondent 1 (Harbans Kaur Chawla) during her cardiac surgery at appellant institute (Escorts) and her contracting Hepatitis B, 60 days later especially since she had not undergone any other blood transfusion except at the appellant institute.

"We agree with the findings of the State Commission that keeping in view the facts of the case in their totality, a compensation of Rs 50,000 is reasonable and justified in the instant case. We, therefore, uphold the order of the State Commission. The first appeal is dismissed. Appellant institute is directed to pay the respondent Rs 50,000," a bench presided by Justice Ashok Bhan said.

In her complaint, Chandigarh resident Chawla had said she had undergone cardiac surgery at Escorts on January 30, 1995 when she was administered four units of blood.

A couple of months later, she began experiencing loss of appetite along with drowsiness and giddiness and developed fever on March 29, 1995, she said adding that on undergoing tests at PGI, Chandigarh it was found she had contracted Hepatitis B due to transfusion of blood during surgery.

Escorts, in its defence had denied that there was any negligence on its part in treating Chawla and had stated that all the blood donated to its blood bank was duly screened.

It had said that the screening was done through ELISA test, but added that the test does not have 100 percent accuracy because it cannot always detect virus in the blood particularly during the early stages of incubation.

In the case of Chawla, the hospital had said, the blood was carefully screened and tested before transfusion.

While agreeing with the state commission's observation that the hospital had taken "reasonable if not foolproof precautions in screening the blood", the NCDRC suggested that the ELISA test conducted by Escorts to screen the blood, is not entirely conclusive and it should consider using more sensitive and specific screening methods, like Radioimmunoassay test routinely used by the American Red Cross.