Unapproved Medical Procedure costs life of 24 children suffering from Thalassemia Major.
Amit Kumar Agarwal & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. W.P. (c) 689 of 2019 | Supreme Court of India | Status: Pending | |
Thalassemia Major is
a blood related genetic disorder wherein persons affected would have to get
regular blood transfusions as the hemoglobin levels in their body would be
negligible. The only curative treatment available for Thalassemia Major is a
Bone Marrow Transplant with a 100% good matched HLA, however only 20% children
ever find a 100% good match. A curative treatment for persons with less than
100% match is being researched on and is at a clinical trial stage in almost
all countries, including the USA, where it was being developed originally. The
curative treatment is both physically taxing for the person receiving it and
extremely expensive and therefore it is important for the doctors to take
special care and even more so because the patients are mostly children.
In the present case
Dr. Satyendra Katewa, of Manipal Hospital Jaipur, convinced parents of multiple
children that getting a bone marrow transplant with a less than 100% HLA good
match (known as Haplo Identical Stem Cell Transplant) was a safe and approved
procedure with a 90-95% success rate and that their children most definitely
needed it to survive. The parents of these children, who wanted nothing more
than their child to have a healthy life, believing every word said by the
doctor to be true agreed to the treatment. Accordingly, the children were
admitted at Soni Manipal Hospital (now Manipal Hospital) for the said
treatment. However, over time, the expense of the treatment started growing
manifolds and the parents who found themselves in a compromised and vulnerable
position kept giving in and spent somewhere between 50 Lacs to 1 Crore each.
However, 24 children lost their lives during or soon after the transplant. Once
the parents realized that it was not just their children who had fallen victim
to the ill motives of this doctor, they filed complaints with the NHRC,
Rajasthan Medical Council, Medical Council of India and the Ministry of Health
and Family Welfare. Amongst them 4 parents have lodged FIRs against Dr. Satyendra
Katewa and the Hospital.
The parents started
making complaints but the authorities have not taken any substantial action.
The police has failed to arrest Dr. Satyendra Katewa even though an FIR under
Section 302 of IPC and 2 FIRs under Section 304 of IPC were registered against
him in 2018.
Although we often
find the police and government authorities slacking in timely action, it came
to us as utter shock that the death of 24 children couldn’t move them. They
have not just failed to arrest the doctor even after registration of FIRs, but
have also failed to initiate civil proceedings against the Hospital and Dr.
Katewa.
We are representing
the parents/families of the children in the criminal proceedings before the
Jaipur High Court and its extremely worrisome that the judiciary isn’t paying
heed either. The Court has stayed criminal investigation on procedural grounds
accepting the entire incident as medical negligence. Even though the Supreme
Court has laid down guidelines for investigation into criminal negligence by
doctors, a judge has to look at the facts before giving up on a case as serious
as this because they feel there is nothing they can do.
At present alongside
representing the families before the High Court in the 0on going criminal
proceedings, we have approached the Supreme Court with the following reliefs:
A. For
directions injuncting all clinical trials relating to Haploidentical Stem Cell
Transplants in the country until efficacy of the said Heplo Stem Cell
Transplant is proven and established worldwide on Thalassemia.
B. For an
order directing the CBI to take over the investigation and prosecution in
respect of FIR 0325/2018, FIR 0326/2018 FIR 0456/2018 Registered at Vidhyadhar
Nagar PS, Jaipur and to register further FIRs in respect of the complaints of
the remaining petitioners .
C. For orders
directing the Medical Council of India to take over the enquiries in respect of
the complaints of misconduct of the respondents.