Surgery mix up over shared names, spinal tumour patient operated for fracture dies: Error or gross negligence?

In a medical nightmare, a 71-year-old woman in Varanasi succumbed to death after undergoing a wrong medical procedure at the trauma centre of Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

The patient was supposed to be operated for a spine tumour and a thigh surgery was performed on her instead, a news agency reported.

According to the hospital, a failure in patient identification led to the operating team getting confused between two patients sharing the first name, Radhika Devi, who was in the neurology department and was admitted for a spine tumour removal and Radhika Singh, who was to undergo a hip replacement surgery.

According to the Economic Times, it was only in the middle of the operation that the orthopedic surgeon noticed the operative site had no visible fracture and alerted the team. The surgery was halted and the patient was sewed back into the ward.

Radhika Devi was operated on for a spinal tumour on March 18, however, she developed complications and died on March 28, said the report.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), over 1,000 cases were registered against doctors for causing death due to alleged negligence between 2017 and 2022.

As per reports, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan accounted for the highest percentage of these cases.

What is medical negligence?

In India, medical negligence is the legal term used to describe a healthcare professional’s failure in providing a standard of care as instructed by the law.

Though the terms medical malpractice and medical negligence are not similar in a strict sense, in India the terms are interchangeably used.

The standard care by a healthcare professional is guided by the Bolam test, adopted from the British.

A healthcare professional is found to be negligent in two cases: either they do not possess the required skill which they said they have or they failed to exercise it with reasonable competence in a given case.

For them to be held accountable, the following conditions must be met: the doctor owed a duty of care to the patient, there has been a breach in providing the service and most importantly it has caused loss or harm to the patient, said the Association of Surgeons of India.

As per Indian Express, the courts are not limiting the evidence of negligence from surgical errors alone but administrative records and digital material are increasingly being accepted as primary evidence. This is also causing more people to report medical negligence beyond the consumer forums.

About 65,000 medical negligence cases were filed in 2025 across the State High Courts, the Supreme Court and consumer forums, a media outlet reported.

Civil versus criminal negligence

In many cases of medical negligence, the complaint is filed under the Consumer Protection Act 2019, which enables them to seek compensation for suffering or loss.

However, for the negligence to amount to a criminal offence, the element of an ill-intent has to be proven, said the Supreme Court in Jacob Mathew v. State of Punjab (2005).

As per reports, a mere error in judgement by the doctor cannot invite criminal prosecution, however, if the negligence is fairly high resulting in complete disregard of the safety and life of the patient, then it can go beyond civil jurisdiction.

This also includes cases of operating on the wrong organ or the wrong patient.