Liability of Hospitals under Medical Negligence in India: An Analytical View Based on Various Judicial Decisions

It is the duty of all health service providers to deliver their serv?iice with utmost care and caution. This duty is not only vested with doctors, nurses and other staff’s in the hospitals, but also to the hospital itself. Therefore it is the duty of the hospitals to ensure that their employee’s i.e doctors, nurses and other staffs are delivering the services to the patient with utmost care. In cases where there is a breach of this obligation on the part of hospitals or on the part of its employees that will give rise to responsibility to hospitals under the framework of medical negligence. Likewise, in cases of such breach to take adequate care while providing health care services in government hospitals, the State will also be liable under the medical negligence framework. Since in India, there is no statutory framework to deal with medical negligence, the principles where developed by Indian judiciary through various cases. So in order to understand the scope and nature of liability of hospitals for medical negligence, it is necessary to examine various judicial decisions.