Kathmandu, September 24

Nepal Medical Association’s major demand for revision of the new penal code, particularly formation of a team of experts before the police can launch investigation into cases of medical negligence appears to be fulfilled with the National Assembly passing the penal code amendment bill yesterday.

The bill will now be sent to the House of Representatives, the Lower House of the Parliament.

The amendment made to the penal code by the Upper House, seeks to involve a team of experts representating Nepal Medical Council, Health Ministry, Home Ministry, consumer rights association and Office of the Attorney General to determine culpability of a doctor in suspected cases of medical negligence on the basis of which police can launch their probe.

The bill may be passed by the HoR with or without changes.

Dr Lochan Karki, general secretary of NMA said the change in the original content of the penal code amendment bill in the Upper House was as per the understanding reached with the doctors’ umbrella organisation a few days ago, but those changes were still not enough. He said that the doctors’ demand that in the case of negligence or recklessness, the punishment should either be jail or fine and not both sentences remained unaddressed.

He said the NMA had raised this issue with the Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal today and he had assured the NMA their concerns would be addressed. “If the House of Representatives passes the penal code amendment bill proposing either jail sentence or fine for medical negligence, then that will be better,” he added.

If the HoR does that, then it will have to send the bill to the Upper House for the latter’s endorsement.

Minister Dhakal said an amendment would be made leaving the matter of imposing either jail sentence or fine or both to the discretion of judges. “If the judges hearing the case think that only one sentence is not enough, and then he could impose both sentences — jail term and fine, or both,” he added.

Spokesperson for MLJPA Ramesh Dhakal said the government, after sealing a deal with the doctors’ association, tried to revise the penal code amendment bill proposing to allow a team of experts to determine prima facie culpability before police could launch their investigation and reduce the jail sentence in the case malicious treatment resulting in the death of a patient.

He said the government had also proposed to change the new penal code’s provision that made it mandatory for doctors’ to seek the consent of parents or guardians for performing surgeries. “This might not be possible in accidents where doctors are required to operate on multiple people injured in accidents. Therefore, we have proposed that in such cases, doctors can perform surgeries without the consent of parents or guardians of the patient,” Dhakal added. General Secretary of Nepal Medical Association Dr Lochan Karki said they had demanded that in case a doctor was found to have treated a patients recklessly or negligently which resulted in death or maiming of the patient, then there should be a provision whereby the guilty doctor should either be sent to jail or imposed fine but should not be made to face both sentences as is the case now in the new penal code.

Section 232 (1) provisions imposition of jail term not exceeding five years and fine not exceeding Rs 50,000 if a patient who was treated recklessly dies or is maimed.