Leaving behind a towel in a patient’s abdomen is sheer carelessness. But failing to detect it even after the patient’s consistent complaint of pain, bleeding and pus formation, is nothing short of callousness. And what makes it even worse is that it happened at the country’s premier institute and not at some small town nursing home.

According to initial reports, the doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, who conducted the surgery to remove gall bladder stones, failed to detect the towel that they had left behind in Gurcharan Kaur’s body, even after an ultrasound — this raises another question — was the ultrasound done properly? Was the ultrasound report that was seen by the doctor, really that of Gurcharan Kaur’s or somebody else’s? Or did the doctor not study the ultrasound report properly?

Whatever it may be, if Gurcharan Kaur had continued to go to AIIMS to take the suggested injections twice a day, she might not have survived at all. Fortunately for her, the family decided that it would be far more convenient to take the injections at a nearby nursing home and it was here that the doctors did a CT scan, detected the towel and removed it.

It is bad enough to go through the trauma of surgery once, particularly at the age of 60. In Gurcharan Kaur’s case, she had to go through it twice, thanks to the negligence of the doctors at AIIMS. Every surgery has a risk element, even where doctors take all due care. And she had to take this risk not once, but twice. And also undergo the accompanying physical and mental pain and suffering. The family has already said that they will file a case of negligence and they certainly should — against the entire team that operated on Gurcharan Kaur at AIIMS. The hospital should also be held vicariously liable.

In most cases of medical negligence, the patient or the relatives have to prove negligence. In some cases however, negligence is so obvious that the facts speak for themselves. The case of Gurcharan Kaur is one such, where the doctrine Res ipsa loquitur or “the thing speaks for itself” applies.

The award of damages by the consumer courts should be large enough to compensate Gurcharan Kaur and at the same time, have the effect of preventing similar acts of negligence in future. In fact, part of the compensation amount should come from the salaries of all those involved in the surgery. The Union ministry of health, on its part, has to take whatever action is needed to prevent repetition of such horrific incidents in future.