SUNIL BHANDARI Vs. KU. POOJA KORI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) DR . Sunil Bhandari, Appellant herein and Opposite Party No.1 before the M.P. State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Bhopal (hereinafter referred to as the State Commission) has filed this appeal challenging the order of that Commission which had found him guilty of medical negligence in the complaint filed by Ku. Pooja Kori (hereinafter referred to as the Patient) through her father Shri Mohan Lal Kori, Original Complainant before the State Commission.

(2.) IN his complaint, Mohan Lal Kori, father of the Patient, had stated that he had taken his daughter (the Patient) who had a mild deformity in her left leg diagnosed as Post -Polio Residual Paralysis (PPRP) to Appellant -Dr. Sunil Bhandari, an Orthopedist, in response to an advertisement that patients who required surgery for disability would be operated by Appellant -Doctor in Laxmi Narayan Hospital (Opposite Party No.2) on payment of Rs.7000/ -. After examining the Patient, a surgery was recommended by the Appellant -Doctor and Complainant was advised to deposit Rs.8000/ - as charges for hospital, operation etc. On 08.01.2001 the surgery was performed on the Patient under general anesthesia. After the surgery, Patient continued to complain about the excruciating and agonizing pain in her operated leg but she was discharged the next day without being examined by the Appellant -Doctor and without adequate post -operative care, advice and treatment. Appellant -Doctor only advised analgesic for the pain and asked her to come for a review check -up on 09.02.2001. 2 or 3 days after the surgery, there was blue colouration on the operated leg, which started spreading accompanied with pain and, therefore, Appellant -Doctor was contacted on phone who stated that he would examine the Patient on his next visit to Jabalpur and that there was nothing to worry. When the Patient was brought to Appellant -Doctor for review check -up on 09.02.2001 the operated leg had become completely black with loss of sensation. Appellant -Doctor, however, did not give any satisfactory explanation for this development and only admitted that the operation had not been successful. He thereafter reapplied the plaster on the operated leg. However, since the health of the Patient kept deteriorating, she was taken to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College, Jabalpur, where Dr. H.S. Verma, Orthopedic Surgeon, after examining the Patient informed that gangrene had developed because of cessation of blood supply in the operated limb. The report of the Colour Doppler examination of the arteries of the left lower limb conducted at Charak Diagnostic and Research Centre, Jabalpur suggested that there was possibility of resistance of flow in the left popliteal artery, which is indicative of deficiency of blood supply. Because of the development of gangrene, the operated leg of the Patient had to be amputated leaving her totally and permanently handicapped and her aspiration to become an athlete or a police officer was no longer possible impacting on her entire quality of life. A legal notice was sent to Appellant -Doctor in this regard but because of the unsatisfactory response, Complainant filed a complaint before the State Commission on grounds of medical negligence and deficiency in service and requested that Appellant -Doctor and OP -2/Hospital be directed to pay a compensation of Rs.18,99,000/ - to the Complainant.

(3.) OP -2/Hospital contended that the entire camp was organized by an NGO. They had only rented out the operation theatre and general ward of the hospital and, therefore, neither had they any connection/knowledge about the surgery conducted on the Patient nor had they received any money from the Complainant. Thus, no service was provided to the Patient/Complainant.