Understanding Medical Negligence under the Legal Regimes in Bangladesh: Gaps and Ways Forward

Abstract

Right to health and medical services are the basic constitutional rights in Bangladesh which are closely related to the right to life of a person. But the scenario of medical negligence in Bangladesh is rampant which leads to violation of not only constitutional rights to health and medical services, but also other statutory rights of the people. Though there are couples of conventional legal forums in Bangladesh to address the right to medical services and to regulate medical professions, the legal avenue is undeniably suffering a vibrant vacuum of a comprehensive legislation on medical negligence issue which would specifically address and prosecute the offence. Even, the prevalent legal frameworks are unequivocally inadequate to provide effective remedies in case of medical negligence claims. Therefore, to a large extent, the cases of medical negligence are gone unaddressed without efficacious legal remedies due to absence of a specific law on this issue, shortcomings of the existing laws, alongside the discrepancy between law and practice. Though it is positive sign that the apex court of Bangladesh, time to time, is upholding directives to prevent medical negligence and asking the concerned authority to bring reformation in the laws, the concerned authority is hardly found to comply the judicial directives. Thus, this study is intended to critically assess the effectiveness of the prevalent national and international legal frameworks with a view to confronting medical negligence in Bangladesh. In this regard, the underpinning thrust of this paper is to analyze the rampant gaps and discrepancy under the existing legal frameworks of Bangladesh. In addition to, this study will critically seek the role of the Bangladesh judiciary in prosecuting the medical negligence cases and awarding judicial remedies for it. Finally, this paper will suggest for introducing a comprehensive legislation on this specific issue as well as the paper will strongly advocate for bringing reformation in the prevalent legal frameworks of Bangladesh which will help to effectively address and prosecute medical negligence cases in Bangladesh.