3 June 2009
Ahmedabad, India
Twelve years after a patient died during treatment, National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) has asked a city-based doctor to cough up Rs 2.5 lakh towards compensation to deceased’s mother for medical negligence. As per case details, 20-year-old Prakash Kushwaha was treated by Dr Arvind Shah in his polyclinic located in Saraspur area in 1997. The patient died after doctor administered some medicine to him.
Following this, Kushwaha’s mother Kamla approached State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (SCDRC) alleging that Shah had carried out the treatment without recording even a provisional diagnosis of her son’s ailment. She accused the doctor of medical negligence and demanded compensation.
The state commission ordered the doctor to give Rs 5 lakh to Kushwaha’s mother but Shah challenged this order before NCDRC. Taking note of negligence on part of the doctor, NCDRC observed, “The doctor is clearly guilty of serious deficiency in service in not issuing a prescription for treatment to the deceased, and then not recording his diagnosis in prescription.”
The complainant’s counsel, Aruna Shah, said the commission has also taken a critical view of doctor’s professional conduct who first told the state commission that he did not attend on the young patient on a particular day and later admitted that he had really treated him.
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