New Delhi: The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) has imposed a Rs 1.5 crore fine on a private hospital here and the doctors concerned for a mix up which resulted in the sperm of a wrong person being used during an Assisted Reproductive Technique (ART) procedure performed on a couple. The NCDRC came down hard on ART clinics that have mushroomed in recent years and where ‘unethical practices’ were ‘rampant’. The Commission said there was a need for their accreditation, besides making it mandatory for them to issue the DNA profile of the new born babies.
The commission was hearing a complaint by the couple, according to which the wife gave birth to twins in June 2009 through an ART procedure. However, as the blood group of the babies was not in consonance with the genetic transmission of possible blood groups from parents to the baby, a paternity test or DNA profile was conducted later which revealed the husband was not the biological father of the twins.
The couple moved the commission claiming Rs 2 crore as compensation for negligence and deficiency in service which created several issues for them, including emotional stress, family discord and fear of genetically inherited diseases.
“In my view, the instant case is of deceptive and unfair trade practices adopted by the opposite parties (OPs) who have forgotten professional ethics. Thus opposite parties 1-3 (the hospital, its director and chairman); also the opposite parties 4-6 (three doctors) are liable for the act of negligence and unfair trade practices…I fix the total lump sum liability of Rs 1.5 crore against the OPs,” presiding member SM Kantikar said in a recent order.
Kanitkar said the blood group report and the DNA profile ‘clearly proved’ that the husband was not the biological father of the babies.
The NCDRC said the family genealogy of the female twins was ‘irreversibly changed’ and they might carry the ‘stigma’ and face difficulties in future. It said the negligence of the opposite parties was ‘conclusively established’ and the hospital did not follow the guidelines prescribed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
Noting that the two girls were 14 years old now, the NCDRC said the parents must have incurred several expenses and deserved ‘adequate compensation’.
The commission said ART clinics were adopting practices such as ‘moving to donor gametes very early’ to increase their success rates and the ‘mixing of gametes and use of donor gametes’ was done without the patient’s knowledge.