Indraprastha Apollo Hospital is challenged by Meenakshi Jain’s 15-year quest for accountability over alleged medical negligence that she says killed her father in 2009.
For 15 years, Meenakshi Jain has waged an unrelenting battle against Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in Delhi, seeking justice for what she claims was the medical negligence that led to her father’s death in 2009. A lawyer by profession, Jain has taken her fight to consumer forums, courts, and medical council, yet she says justice remains out of reach. “Even as a lawyer representing my own case, I find myself up against a hospital so powerful and influential that the system seems unwilling to hold it accountable,” she asserts.
Jain’s ordeal began on March 6, 2009, when her 71-year-old father, Pawan Kumar Jain, was admitted to Indraprastha Apollo Hospital after being diagnosed with a perianal abscess. A perianal abscess is a painful, swollen, pus-filled lump that appears near the anus. It’s usually caused by an infection of the anal gland.
“My father was both a diabetic and a cardiac patient. The doctors initially called for emergency surgery, yet they delayed the procedure for 20 hours,” she recalls. According to Jain, when she questioned the hospital about the delay, she was told that the surgery could not proceed until a hospital room was booked, as billing procedures had to be completed first. “By the time they finally performed the surgery, his infection had already worsened due to the delay,” she alleges.
Jain further claims that after the surgery, her father’s cardiac medications—prescribed for years—were inexplicably discontinued. “A cardiac patient who underwent a non-cardiac surgery was left without his essential heart medications for three weeks. His condition was not monitored, and not even his cardiologist intervened. On March 27, he suffered a heart attack,” she says. According to Jain, only after this first heart attack did doctors reinstate his cardiac medicines.
However, her father’s suffering did not end there. “On March 30, 2009, he suffered a second heart attack. It was only then that they conducted tests and decided to perform an angiography—despite his critically low hemoglobin levels,” she states. Jain alleges that doctors failed to check his hemoglobin before proceeding with the procedure, and a blood transfusion was only administered afterward. “But by then, it was too little, too late. My father suffered a third and final cardiac arrest on the morning of March 31, 2009, and passed away at 10:30 AM,” she says.
Following her father’s death, Meenakshi Jain made a resolute decision—to take on Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in a legal battle over alleged medical negligence. “I decided to dedicate my entire life to holding the hospital accountable and seeking justice for my father,” she says. For Jain, this fight is not just about legal proceedings; it is about honouring the memory of a man who, she recalls, was more than just a father to her.
“Pawan Kumar Jain was a deeply compassionate human being who always helped others. He was a lawyer himself, but he often fought cases for free—even for the medical community, he took on pro bono cases,” she reminisces. Fifteen years have passed since his tragic death, yet the family says their grief remains unresolved. “We haven’t even had the chance to mourn properly,” Jain says, “because all these years have been spent running from pillar to post in the pursuit of justice.”
