The court confirmed the need for demonstrable evidence of monetary loss to qualify for compensation in medical negligence cases.

1. This appeal has been filed by the appellant / complainant under S.15 read with S.17(1)(a)(ii) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 against the order of the learned District Consumer Disputes Redresssal Forum Chennai (North) passed in C.C. No. 30/2008 dated 8.4.2011 seeking enhancement of relief.
For the sake of convenience and brevity the parties are referred to here as they stood arrayed in the District Forum.
The factual background culminating in this appeal is as follows:
1. That the appellant / complainant had filed a complainant against the three respondents / opposite parties claiming Rs.15,00,000 as compensation on the ground of alleged deficiency in service and for a sum of Rs. 10,000 towards costs alleging inter alia that the complainant was covered under the Employees State Insurance Scheme and on 2.6.2006 she was admitted to the 2nd opposite party hospital for incisional hernia and the 3rd opposite party Doctor Kannapiran performed surgery for the same on 8.6.2006 and after surgery the complainant developed nauseating feeling but nobody in the said hospital attended her and hence the complainant started vomiting and suffered severe headache and she could not pass urine motion and flatus and she felt very thirsty and also was suffering from fever; that she was referred to the Government General Hospital on 13.6.2006 for further management and at the Government General Hospital Chennai various tests were done on her and it was found that the blood urea went up to 64% and creatinine level shut up to 2.8% and the complainant was operated upon on the night of 13.6.2006 itself in which 30 c.m. length of intestine was removed as gangrene had developed and thereafter the complainant suffered loss of weight and was unable to do her day to day work which was due to negligence on the part of the 3rd opposite party doctor in stitching the intestine also while performing incisional hernia surgery at the 2nd opposite party hospital; that because of the negligence exhibited by the 2nd opposite party doctor the complainant had to undergo two surgeries within a short span of 5 days and had lost her weight and she had suffered mental agony pain and stress and hence she had filed this complaint.

2. The opposite parties had resisted the claim of the complainant by setting out a defence that the complainant was not at all covered under ESI scheme and that the company in which the complainant claimed to have worked during the relevant period was closed much earlier and hence the complainant wrongly took the treatment in the 2nd opposite party hospital by using her old identity card and hence there was no consumer and service provider relationship between the parties; That in any event surgery was performed by the 3rd opposite party doctor properly after necessary preparations and the proper post - operative care was also taken and the complainant suffered some inconvenience due to post - operative paralytic illeus and it was routine and normal after such abdominal surgery and that the complainant did not follow up the surgery medical advice; that the complainant had already suffered from jaundice and chickenpox and she had undergone LSCS and as her immune power was poor she suffered from viral fever on the 3rd and 4th operative days; that when the complainant was shifted to Government Hospital Chennai her condition was stable and it is false to allege that during hernia surgery a portion of the complainants intestine was also stitched and as there was no negligence on the part of the 3rd opposite party doctor the complainant is not entitled to any relief.

3. On considering the pleadings and other materials availa