U.S. Indian Doctor Wins Whooping 5.96 Cr Indian Medical Negligence Payout

Thursday, 24 October 2013, 22:36 IST
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court awarded a whopping 5.96 crore as compensation to be paid by Kolkata-based AMRI Hospital and three doctors to a U.S. based Indian-origin doctor for medical negligence which led to the death of his wife in 1998.

A bench of justices S J Mukhopadhaya and V Gopala Gowda asked the hospital and three doctors to pay the amount within eight weeks to Dr Kunal Saha, an Ohio-based AIDS researcher, for Anuradha Saha’s death.
 Anuradha, herself a child psychologist, had come to her home town Kolkata in March 1998 on a summer vacation. She complained of skin rashes on April 25 and consulted Dr Sukumar Mukherjee, who, without prescribing any medicine, simply asked her to take rest.

As rashes reappeared more aggressively on May 7, 1998, Mukherjee prescribed Depomedrol injection 80 mg twice daily, a step which was later faulted by experts at the apex court.

After administration of the injection, Anuradha’s condition deteriorated rapidly following which she had to be admitted at AMRI on May 11 under Mukherjee's supervision.

Following his wife’s death, Kunal launched his fight against medical negligence. He later formed People for Better Treatment (PBT) to make his crusade into a mass movement and filed cases against three doctors and the AMRI hospital, where Anuradha was treated before being shifted to the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai, where she died from the TEN (Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis) syndrome.

In 2009, the SC found the AMRI hospital guilty of medical negligence and referred the case to the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC), which had fixed the compensation amount to 1.7 crore.

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Source: PTI
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