New Delhi: The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) has held a doctor guilty of medical negligence and directed him to pay Rs4 lakh to a man who lost his hand due to his treatment. The national commission was hearing a revision petition filed by a Bihar resident, Jai Prakash Mehta, challenging an order of the Bihar State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, which dismissed his plea for compensation.
Mehta sustained serious burn injuries on his right arm after he got an electric shock while working on a railway line as a contract labourer June 26, 1998. He was under medical treatment from an ENT (ear, nose and throat) specialist B N Rai in Rohtas, Bihar for over two weeks. Later, he was referred to the Institute of Medical Sciences and S S Hospital, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, where he was informed that gangrene had set in, which could not be reversed and his arm had to be amputated. The NCDRC held Rai guilty of medical negligence.
IANS
