SC awards biggest compensation for medical negligence.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: He is known as Dr. Death. He is also the chief medical adviser to the West Bengal government’s health department. Meet Dr. Sukumar Mukherjee, who was found guilty by the Supreme Court on Thursday of giving the wrong dose of a medicine which led to the death of Anuradha in 1998, wife of Ohio-based AIDS researcher Dr Kunal Saha.
Mukherjee later on became the in-charge of developing standard treatment norms to be followed by all hospitals in the state of West Bengal. He reviews the entire health delivery system and keeps a check on the standards of medical education, makes recommendations in the state, according to an order issued by the state health department of the Mamata Banerjee led government.
But like in the movies, the past finally caught up with Dr. Death. The Supreme Court awarded Rs. 5.96 crore as compensation to be paid by Kolkata-based AMRI Hospital and the three doctors (including Mukherjee) to Dr. Saha for medical negligence which led to the death of his wife in 1998.
A relived Saha told CNN-IBN in a Skype interview, “The amount in Indian context should send a strong signal to the negligent doctors and hospitals in India. I’m pleased, but I will have to see what exactly they have done and what are the grounds because in India cases of medical negligence appear in the news every single day but hardly anybody gets justice.”
A one man army against the Indian medical system, Saha explained “My wife, Anuradha Saha, a US-based child psychologist, died during a social visit to India in 1998 from gross medical negligence by senior Kolkata doctors, Dr. Sukumar Mukherjee, Dr. B.N. Halder and late Dr. Abani Roychowdhury.”
It was a long and bitter fight to the finish for Dr. Saha. After the West Bengal Medical Council dismissed his case, Saha went to the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) which found no negligence by any doctor or AMRI Hospital and dismissed the case in 2006.
Undeterred, Saha approached the apex court, which found AMRI Hospital and three doctors guilty of negligence in 2009 and the case was referred to NCDRC for determining quantum of compensation Saha then went to the Medical Council of India (MCI) seeking cancellation of the doctors’ licenses. MCI found the doctors guilty of professional misconduct and struck their names off the registry for three months in May 2011. In late 2011, NCDRC awarded Rs 1.77 crore as compensation. The dogged Saha went again to the Supreme Court saying the compensation is too little.
The Court found Mukherjee “ignorant” in its judgment for the use of a steroid called Depomedrol. He gave Anuradha an astronomical dose of 80 mg twice daily in contrast to the maximum recommended dose of 40-120 mg once at one-two weeks’ interval.
The court observed: “… The treatment line followed by Dr. Mukherjee which entailed administration of 80 mg of Depomedrol injection twice is not supported by any school of thought. The treatment line, in this case, does not flow from any considered affinity to a particular school of thought, but out of sheer ignorance of basic hazards relating to use of steroids as also lack of judgment.”
It was after giving the injection that Anuradha’s condition deteriorated rapidly following which she had to be admitted at AMRI under Dr. Mukherjee supervision. As Anuradha’s condition failed to improve, she was flown to Breach Candy Hospital, Mumbai, where she was found to be suffering from a rare and deadly skin disease–Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (TEN)
India has been host to a series of such ‘’medical mishaps’’ from the hands of medical practitioners which has been increasing with alarming regularity. Many of the victims are poor patients with little resources on their side and hence suffer silently. Thursday’s case should have emboldened scores of Sahas who have suffered, to come forward and at least claim a certain compensation for the lives lost owing to the breach of trust and blind faith that most of us bestow onto the medical fraternity.
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