Foreign Doctors Operating in India


It has become quite common nowadays to have foreign surgeons operating on India patients during the course of a short visit or when they come to attend workshops. There are many horror stories about the results of such surgeries, when the surgeon has left and complications take place. It is unfortunate that some hospitals use the reputations of the foreign surgeons to entice patients into being operated, carefully shielding them from knowledge of the possible consequences.This issue has been discussed by one of the experts on the legal aspects of these surgeries and I think it is useful to read what he has to say about it. I am copying this form a Yahoo group communication sent to me, as I feel this is of general interest and needs to be better known.

What are the legal aspects of a foreign surgeon coming to India and perform surgery during camps and conferences?
QUESTION--What is the legal status of Foreign surgeon who come for camps and conferences and do surgery here? What will be their responsibility regarding complications/ misconduct? Should they take prior permission from MCI or local authority?

ANSWER—

1—Nobody can treat a patient in India unless he is registered with the medical council here. The foreign surgeons need to take a special short time / temporary registration with the MCI. Operating without such permission would be illegal.

2—Foreigners should not venture illegally in their own interest. If they operate and a police complaint / FIR is registered against them for criminal negligence, they may have problem leaving the country and may even be arrested.

3—Hospitals sponsoring such surgery will be fully liable in law for compensation and also for criminal negligence for allowing an unlicenced person to operate and causing harm.

4—It is also possible, depending upon legal provisions, that a complaint alleging negligence may be made or referred to the foreign medical council where the surgeon is registered and the council may decide upon the complaint and take action against him.

5—If a hospital thinks that getting a patient operated by the foreign surgeon but not showing his name as the person conducting the surgery in the medical records will save the hospital or the surgeon from the requirements or consequences mentioned above, this is a fallacy. It would be deemed as fraudulent on the part of the hospital..

QUESTION--What are the legal aspects of a robotic surgery done upon a patient in India by a foreign surgeon sitting abroad in his chamber?

ANSWER—

1—Since the patient is admitted in India in a hospital under the care of a surgeon who is present in the operation theatre to carry out: pre-operative management; intraoperative management including necessary surgery and coordination and assistance in collaboration with the foreign expert; and, post-operative management, the patient will be entitled to sue the hospital and the surgeon in India for compensation etc.

2—The consent should be obtained after giving necessary information to the patient about the name of the foreign surgeon and the nature of the surgery.

3—Necessary permission from the MCI should be taken because this would involve surgery in India by a doctor not registered with the MCI.

4—The hospital and the surgeon should be adequately covered by professional indemnity insurance.

17 October 2011

This was the opinion of Prof (Dr) M C Gupta, who is a Physician with a law degree and practices as a legal consultant

Perhaps organisers of workshops and patients who rush in at the sound of phoren should read this very carefully and ponder the consequences.

Comments

tanishkar said…

just linked this article on my Facebook account. it’s a very interesting article for all.

Best Hospitals in India
September 22, 2012 at 2:28 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alexander Grothendieck: Mathematician Extraordinaire

Image
                                    The lion in winter: Grothendieck in old age  Mathematicians and theoretical physicists fascinate me. This is because, I can imagine myself, if I work hard enough, sometime solving a biological conundrum, or evaluating a chemical compound. But the idea of sitting with a piece of paper and pencil and calculating away for days or months or years and then coming up with a proof of an esoteric mathematical problem, or a theory to explain an observation made in deep space seems to me to be more like magic. Anybody who can do this, in my opinion is made of stuff that I cannot even imagine, let alone ever to hope to emulate. There are several such mathematicians. One of them passed away last November. I refer to Alexander Grothendieck who passed away on the 13 th of last month. Grothendieck was the mathematician par excellence. He embodied all that is mysterious and unknowable about these “beautiful minds” as somebody picturesquely described anoth
Read more

The Uttar Banga Anath Ashram ( North Bengal Orphanage)

Image
Uma Mallick looks like an ordinary Bengali Housewife. She wears a standard cotton sari, vermillion on her forehead and travels clinging to her husband’s motorcycle as he whizzes past in Siliguri’s notorious lanes. However she is anything but that. Uma is the founder and the livewire of the Uttar Banga Anath Ashram (North Bengal Orphanage). Lest that makes you conjure up an image of a gleaming building full of well dressed children being looked after by an army of attendants, let me disillusion you. Her orphanage looks after girl children (she only takes in girls), and they are housed in a tiny postage stamp sized piece of land that was donated to her by a kind soul. Or perhaps not so kind soul, because the land was already occupied by a group of Mastaans, ( local goons) who could only be induced to vacate by a long and desperate struggle, involving a hunger strike by the children, and the help of local well-wishers. The house is basically a brick structure covered by a tin roof. There
Read more

Mamma Africa: Miriam Makeba and Malaika

Image
Today is the fifth death anniversary of singer activist Miriam Makeba. In our school days her songs were immensely popular; especially Malaika and Pata Pata which used to be bring to our staid Calcutta school the romance of Africa. She was one of the singers who made the sixties one of the most significant decades of revolt in the twentieth century when challenges to authority seemed to be a way of life. Miriam "Zenzi" Makeba was born in a suburb of Johannesburg in one of the crowded and deprived black townships of the apartheid era. Her father, Caswell, was Xhosa: her mother, Christina, was Swazi. Her given name Zenzi was derived from the Xhosa word Uzenzile, meaning "you have no one to blame but yourself". This was a traditional name intended to provide support through life's difficulties. When she was eighteen days old, her mother was arrested for selling umqombothi, an African homemade beer distilled from malt and cornmeal. Her mother was sentenced to a
Read more