Law to seek damages against Government Hospitals under Law of Tort is not much used by in India because few lawyers have tried to study this subject to specialize in filing Damage Suits under law of Tort.
The Law of damages, known as law of torts, can be explained in few lines like this,
"If anybody does you any wrong whatsoever,
you can knock the doors of Court and Court will award you damages
from whosoever may have wronged to you,"
"Whosoever" includes all government departments, all government hospitals, all municipal bodies, all government public secotor bodies etc.etc.
It does not matter whether Government Hospital is giving you free services or whether it is charging some fee.
If you do not get water for one day from municipal body, you can ask for damages under Law of Tort.
If you fall in pit left open by Jal Board, you can file suit for damages against Jal Board and MCD.
If you feel that Government Hospital has not treated you or your relative properly, you can file a suit for damages against Government Hospital.
The Charity Hospitals who may be providing free treatments to people, are also liable for damages under law of Tort.
Recently, this law has been re-examined by the Legendary Justice Markendey Katju in a 05-05-2008 (2008) Volume 9 SCC Page 527 headnote C ) judgement, where he examined all earlier leading Indian and Foreign cases under Law of Tort and clarified that in India, Suits under Law of Tort can be filed against even Governmental and Statutory bodies who may be providing free service. The judgement gives several such examples.
Supreme Court has now armed people with power to file suit for damages against all Government and Statutory bodies.
Whenever you feel that against any public body has done you wrong, though it had a duty to care, you can take legal advise to consider suit for filing damages under Law of Torts.
Disclaimer: This is not supposed to be a legal advice. If you do anything whatsoever on basis of whatever said above, you do it at your own risk and you are responsible. I am not Liable under Law of Tort or for any other law if you do anything on basis of this academic article.
