Patients and their kin will soon have an official platform to lodge complaints of medical negligence as the Haryana Government has decided to constitute district medical boards for negligence (DMBN) to accept complaints against medical professionals and private hospitals.
Principal Secretary of Health Department has issued an official notification in this regard on May 22. The boards will have the power to decide on complaints against doctors in both private and public sectors.
The DMBNs will have five members, including Civil Surgeon as Chairperson and Principal Medical Officer (PMO) or Medical Superintendent of the district hospital as member-secretary.
There will be a provision of two subject specialists with the same speciality related to the type of complaint filed before the DMBN. Two experts in the medical board may be from either the Government or private sectors.
“As per the notification the Civil Surgeon will be authorised to call an expert from other districts if the expert specialist is not available to handle the complaint and one member of Indian Medical Association at the district level, Dr BK Rajora, Gurugram Chief Medical Officer, said.
Meanwhile, the medical board will have the power to inspect the premises as per requirement of the case, the notification said.
“Once the board will form at the district level the negligence report against the medical professional will come in a short period and that will definitely help to patients and their kin, the CMO said.
A few days ago Six doctors and the management of the Artemis hospital in Gurugram had been booked for medical negligence on the complaint of a city resident.
The order states that an investigating officer (IO) will take an opinion of the board before taking any action against doctors in complaints of negligence.