Doctor fined Rs 4 lakh for negligence

The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) has held a doctor guilty of medical negligence and directed him to pay Rs four lakh to a man who lost his hand due to his treatment. 

Jai Prakash Mehta, a Bihar resident, had challenged an order of the Bihar State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, which dismissed his plea for compensation. NCDRC president DK Jain and members Vineeta Rai and Vinay Kumar set aside the order of the Bihar state commission saying that it had erroneously concluded that there was no medical negligence. 

‘He did not adopt the practice in respect of diagnosis and treatment in the case, which would be adopted by a doctor of ordinary skill in accordance with at least one of the responsible bodies of opinion of professional practitioners in the field, since he gave only first aid treatment which was totally inadequate and ineffective for injuries caused by serious burns,’ the national commission said in the order. 

On 26 June, 1998, Mehta got an electric shock while working on a railway line as a contract labourer and sustained serious burn injuries. An ENT (ear, nose and throat) specialist BN Rai in Rohtas, Bihar treated him for over two weeks. Mehta sustained serious burn injuries on his right arm after he got an electric. Later, he was referred to Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, where he was informed that gangrene had set in, which could not be reversed and his arm had to be surgically removed. 

The NCDRC held Rai guilty of medical negligence and observed that the doctor being an ENT specialist did not prima facie possess the medical skills to treat a serious burn injury.